Mix Interiors 205
September 2020
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Contents INSIGHT
80
7 UPFRONT 16
MATERIAL MATTERS
19
DESERT ISLAND DESKS
22 SEVEN 25
STEVE GALE
26 PERSPECTIVE 28
EDUCATION PROPERTY
SPOTLIGHT 34
BIG QUESTION
36
SPOTLIGHT: MENTAL WELLBEING
WORKPLACE 50
CASE STUDY: MUCKLE LLP
58
CASE STUDY: SPRINTS CAPITAL
66
WORKPLACE PROPERTY
16
HOSPITALITY 70
CASE STUDY: BERMONDS LOCKE
76 INTERVIEW Post-Pandemic Hospitality with Dylan Wills, Associate, Hirsch-Bedner Associates
50
LIVING 80
CASE STUDY: CHAPTER SPITALFIELDS
87 INTERVIEW Future-proofing BTR in the face of COVID-19 with Michael Howard, Founder, urbanbubble 88
INTERVIEW: BENE’S PORTS WITH PEARSON LLOYD
90 LAUNCHPAD 96 SELECTIONS 98
THE FINAL WORD: MIKE WALLEY
90 Mix 205 September 2020 | 3
Get in touch
A word from Mick As you’ll see later in the issue, this month’s Spotlight focuses on mental health, which you cannot have failed to notice is the hottest of topics right now, exacerbated by the pandemic and lockdown. I have to say that, having read through the invaluable responses from our contributors, that I have a massive respect for the amazing work they are all doing – not just for those suffering with poor mental health, but for all of us. Not only are they bringing these issues to the fore, they are also helping to reduce (and, hopefully with time, eradicate) the stigma associated with poor mental health. InsideOut’s Rob Stephenson says that 100% of us will know what it is like to struggle with our mental wellbeing as a result of the pandemic. And he’s right. I consider myself (fortunately) to be pretty mentally healthy, but that’s not to say that I – like so many of us – haven’t been tested severely by the pandemic and lockdown. I cannot imagine what those who do struggle with their mental health have been and are going through. I learnt an awful lot from our brilliant contributors – I hope you do too. In the meantime, keep safe and (mentally) well.
EDITOR Mick Jordan mick@mixinteriors.com MANAGING DIRECTOR Martin Mongan martin@mixinteriors.com
The cover THE LOGO
The cover has a rich array of geometrical shapes and finishes, creating a mood. We embedded the Mix logo in some of these shapes, and added shades and textures to enhance them, so the logo is initially visible, but the viewer is also encouraged to discover variants of it.
EDITORIAL EXECUTIVE Chloe Petersen Snell chloe@mixinteriors.com
WWW.WILLMOTTDIXON.CO.UK
OWNER Marcie Incarico marcie@mixinteriors.com
THE COVER IMAGE
The cover design has a rich array of geometrical shapes and different finishes, which in itself is composing a mood. We thought that the best way to maintain this mood whilst at the same time introducing the logo would be to have the Mix logo embedded in some of these shapes, and using the third dimension (with the help of shades and textures) to enhance those shapes for a subtle but intriguing accent, so on an initial view the logo is visible, and after a few seconds the viewer can discover variants of it, adding a sense of playfulness to the cover. COURTESY OF KARNDEAN
HEAD OF OPERATIONS Lisa Jackson lisa@mixinteriors.com
DESIGNER Tammi Bell tamzin@tamzinrosedesigns.com FOUNDING PUBLISHER Henry Pugh CONTRIBUTORS Steve Gale, David Thame Mike Walley ADDRESS 85 Greengate, Manchester M3 7NA TELEPHONE 0161 519 4850 EMAIL editorial@wearemixgroup.com WEBSITE www.mixinteriors.com TWITTER @mixinteriors INSTAGRAM @mix.interiors LINKEDIN Mix Interiors
Get your own To ensure that a regular copy of Mix Interiors reaches you or to request back issues, call 0161 519 4850 or email lisa@mixinteriors.com ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION CHARGES
UK single £45.50, Europe £135 (airmail), Outside Europe £165 (airmail) 4 | Mix 205 September 2020
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Kate Borastero kate@mixinteriors.com
Printed by S&G Print ISSN 1757-2371
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UPFRONT
A tribute to Richard Beastall (1961–2020) We were extremely saddened to hear from our friends at tp bennett that its Principal Director, Richard Beastall, had lost his battle with cancer. Our thoughts and condolences go to all Richard’s family, friends and colleagues. The firm released a few heartfelt words in remembrance.
I
t is with heavy hearts that we regret to announce that our dear friend and colleague Richard Beastall died on 5th August 2020 after a long battle with cancer. Born in Matlock, Derbyshire, on 11th March 1961, Richard had a calling for architecture from childhood, having grown up with a father who had dreamed of being an architect and many family members and friends in the property sector. Richard graduated from Nottingham University. During this time, he completed a year out at Nottingham County Council, where he learned the greatest lesson of his young career: challenge the brief if that’s what is right. He joined tp bennett in 1985, quickly becoming an Associate and then a Partner. Richard’s enthusiasm for collaborating with end users led him to start the company’s highly successful interiors division over 20 years ago, bringing specialist expertise together as one unit. He strongly believed in blending the skills of the team and developing the career paths of those he worked with. ‘Setting up the interiors division was one of the most exciting times of my life – we had everything to gain,’ he said of the process. He was a great advocate of being approachable to his younger colleagues, strong collaboration between the project team and the client, and the importance of making – and learning from – mistakes. Starting with a team of 15, the division has grown into the largest interiors team in the UK.
His skill in blending architecture and interiors to ‘pull spaces together’ and create inspiring places, particularly for large-scale office headquarters, led him to design many high profile, award-winning projects. Richard had a genuine love of life and a passion for people who crossed his professional and personal lives. He loved travelling the world and enjoyed hosting dinner parties at his self-designed house on the seafront in Bexhill. Richard was an active Freeman of the City of London with the Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects and a supporter of the Outward Bound Trust. He served for many years on the Board of the British Council for Offices, having started the BCO Banking Peer Review Group, and was an enthusiastic supporter of the BCO Next Gen. His indomitable optimism and boundless positivity made him a loved and respected pillar of our industry. Richard leaves his dear husband, Martyn, his parents and three sisters, and a huge void in the property and design community. ‘I only ever wanted to be an architect. Even from the age of six, although I didn’t know what it meant then!’ Julian Sharpe, Principal Director at tp bennett, added his own tribute: ‘I first met Richard 30 years ago. In the time I worked with him he always gave honest, constructive criticism, but ultimately put trust in all of us to do things our way. He truly believed that absolutely anything was possible if only the desire to succeed was there. ‘Richard understood intuitively that everything in business starts and ends with people.’ w
Mix 205 September 2020 | 7
Bringing a unique approach to the challenge of adaptable floor layouts, Art Fields combines three carpet plank designs to bring a gradual transition between areas. With 40% recycled content ColorStrandÂŽ premium nylon, Art Fields is made responsibly in Belgium.
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UPFRONT
In the ARC
O
MixologyNorth 19
Mixology North postponed
I
t is with a heavy heart that we formally announce that Mixology North, due to take place on 3 December 2020 at Manchester Central, has been postponed due to COVID-19. It has been confirmed that our Manchester Central venue will remain a Nightingale Hospital until the end of the year and, as restrictions around large gatherings in the city region remain in place, we felt our best and safest option was to postpone the event until next year. For all of you that have completed projects and/or launched a product that you were hoping to enter at this year’s awards – fear not – as our entry process for the 2021 Awards will include project/products completed in 2020 and 2021. I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to our valued sponsors and guests who had already booked to be part of this event – your booking will be valid for the 2021 awards at this year’s rate. Please feel free to give either myself or a member of the Mix team a call on 0161 519 4850 should you have any questions.
ffering themselves as a ‘neighbourhood workplace for people who are tired of working from home,’ ARC Club is taking on the big boys of coworking with its bijou urban space in Homerton, London. Adapting to meet the demand of those who are finding working from home difficult, ARC Club was built over the period of six weeks, transforming a featureless 2,500 sq ft retail unit into a beautiful, functional and bright remote working hub. The space occupies a typically residential location, allowing people to ‘work near home’. Architect Caro Lundin, who is the Co-founder and Creative Director of ARC, has overseen every detail of the project – from build through to merchandise. Caro’s design philosophy of ‘not too much and not too little’ makes for an offering that is both stylish and costs considerably less than your average London desk – there is little place in mainstream post-COVID coworking for excess, Caro mentions. ‘Having worked mostly in retail and hospitality, ARC Club provided me with an opportunity to consider the functional aspects of a space that people appreciate but rarely notice – from electrics to soundproofing to the ergonomics of furniture,’ Caro says. ‘I love colour, but the abundance of natural light encouraged me to focus on the innate shades of the materials we used and the way they change over the course of the day.’ ARC has embraced the beauty of durable, low-cost materials such as linoleum, birch ply and the occasional piece of second-hand furniture. Caro retained the assets of the existing shell, including poured concrete floors and exposed services, contrasting with carefully placed colour, including orange felt curtains acting as partitions and acoustic aids. The size and flexibility of the space has allowed COVID-ready measures to be put in place. The space uses a modular pod system, operating on a standard sheet size grid, which is easily replicable. ‘The challenge with ARC Club was to create a scalable solution. Since affordability for the widest possible audience is at the heart of our offering, my approach had to be one that embraced the constraints of the space, while delivering something that was neither commercial nor boring,’ says Caro. ‘Unlike other coworking spaces, we are geared exclusively towards solo workers, which is why I opted for a modular pod system to create a multitude of private spaces.’w
As always sending our safest and best wishes.
Marcie Incarico, Owner, Mix Interiors photography by andrew meredith
10 | Mix 205 September 2020
NOOM
NOOM NEWS Soft seating
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imperial Office
A complete range of breakout/storage furniture from Imperial Office Furniture. Use Matrix to section off areas, create breakout seating or large boardroom tables. It’s much more than storage.
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UPFRONT
A green recovery starts with carbon recovery Jon Khoo, Regional Sustainability Manager, Interface
S
ome commentators have referred to 2020 as a great pause – pointing to the fact that levels of carbon dioxide have dropped significantly as countries locked down their borders, giving our ecosystems a brief, temporary respite. Others are looking at 2020 as the year that marked a significant reset on how we think about protecting our planet and creating a resilient world where humanity does not just survive but thrives. To me, a green recovery is one where governments and businesses put the environment at the centre of plans to rebuild the economy. The opportunity: an economic recovery that factors in reduced carbon emissions, protecting biodiversity, and building resilience by working with nature, rather than against it. As former Unilever CEO, Paul Polman, puts it, ‘COVID-19 has made clear that there cannot be healthy people on an unhealthy planet.’ Global warming has been caused by humanity creating an imbalance in the carbon cycle of the natural world. As we industrialised, humanity put an excess amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and, as a greenhouse gas this has caused our planet to warm. The proof is that nine of the 10 warmest years have occurred since 2005, with 2019 the second warmest year on record.
To change this, we need to repair the carbon cycle, by stopping excess man-made carbon emissions entering our atmosphere and finding ways to even remove it. For a manufacturer, the focus needs to be on the carbon embodied in your products and supply chain. At Interface, we have been working for 26 years on reducing the carbon footprint of our products – to the extent that all our products are now carbon neutral. We have achieved this through using less material, embracing renewable energy and making our supply chain carbon emission savvy. If you have the ability to make or specify a carbon neutral produce, why wouldn’t you? We are delighted to see other sectors take this approach – Unilever recently announced it would be seeking to put carbon footprint labels on its products to treat carbon emissions akin to counting calories. In the realms of technology, it was great to see Apple’s pledge to be fully carbon neutral by 2030 (in relation to its operations, supply chain and products) and, earlier in the year, Microsoft’s pledge to be carbon negative by 2040. But we will need more companies to commit to take action on climate. By designing your business with carbon in mind, you too can take a significant step toward a more regenerative future.w below Interface Carbon Neutral Floor
Mix 205 September 2020 | 13
Rawside + Squire & Partners + Bureau rawside.co
Embody Gaming Chair
d
is for Game changer erman Miller, in collaboration with Logitech G, has entered the world of ergonomics for gamers, streamers, and esport athletes, with the unveiling of a series of high performance gaming furniture and accessories, including the Embody Gaming Chair. Together, the two companies spent nearly two years studying esport pros and players around the globe to understand their needs. ‘Prior to the in-depth research we did, we knew many gamers loved our current offering as we are constantly rated highly in almost every gamer product review,’ says Tim Straker, Chief Marketing Officer for Herman Miller. ‘The main feedback we received was they wanted more variety.’ The more research Herman Miller and Logitech did with the gaming community, the more they found that players took a variety of postures in chairs without noticing the negative impact it had on their performance and potential damage to their health over time. ‘This in-depth research convinced us that we needed to modify a current offering to improve lower back support, increase forward leaning, provide a greater ability to swivel, and better adjustments for tables and monitors,’ Tim continues. ‘The Embody Chair set the benchmark for pressure distribution, natural alignment, and support for healthy movement, so it was the perfect choice to be modified to meet these needs.’ In addition to the Embody Gaming Chair, the two companies are bringing a height adjustable desk and a monitor arm to the gaming market. While several of Herman Miller’s chair designs were tested with gamers, Embody was chosen as the perfect platform to build a gaming chair from. A typical esports athlete and streamer are seated at their desk upwards of three times as long as a typical office worker. Furthermore, a large number of gamers expressed widespread dissatisfaction with the comfort and ergonomics provided from traditional gaming chairs that typically focus on aesthetics, as there is a significant decline in performance due to the physical challenges that come from repetitive motion injuries. ‘Gamers deserve advanced ergonomic solutions in all aspects of play. We partnered with Herman Miller to evolve their awardwinning Embody Chair into a solution that meets the specific needs of gamers today,’ says Peter Kingsley, Chief Marketing Officer at Logitech G. ‘This is the first step in an ongoing relationship, and we’re proud to be working with Herman Miller to find new ways to help all gamers play at their best.’w
H
Monitor arms Dataflex monitor arms and other workplace accessories to be precise. High quality products for every budget that help you create a comfortable, healthy and inspiring workplace. So where you work is also a place where you feel at home. We call it ‘feeling at work’. www.dataflex-int.com
UPFRONT Material Matters
Coral Reef
Material matters Coral Reef A fascinating collaboration between two mission driven companies, The Good Plastic Company and Swiss acoustics company, Impact Acoustic, Coral Reef is a bespoke panel created from recycled PET offcuts.
W
e meet with Sven Erni, Co-founder of Impact Acoustic, and William Chizhovsky, Founder and CEO of The Good Plastic Company. Sven has, for the past four years, been developing acoustic materials made of recycled PET bottles. ‘There’s a lot of whitewashing going on – we wanted our products to be truly sustainable and so we developed a product that is Cradle to Cradle and LEED certified. We manufacture the raw panels and cut them into different shapes – for use in furniture, schools, restaurants and offices.’ The company has small teams in Switzerland and Shanghai – where the raw panels are manufactured. ‘For the past 20 years all the PT from the EU has gone to China, and it wasn’t until 2018 that they cut it off. The recycling industry is there, and for us it makes much more ecological sense to have our manufacturing there,’ says Sven. ‘We have a range of our own products, but about 70% is customised, bespoke work for various architecture and interior design clients. ‘One problem we’ve always had is, what do we do with the offcuts besides its use as acoustic filler? We were searching for a way
16 | Mix 205 September 2020
to upcycle the offcuts in a way that could give the material a third life.’ The Good Plastic Company is a missiondriven organisation based primarily in the Netherlands and London, dedicated to helping solve the problem of 400 million tonnes of plastic waste generated per year. Producing environmentally friendly panels from recycled plastic, each panel from the Good Plastic Company has the lowest ecological footprint possible and is made from a single type of plastic so it can be easily recycled, extending its use indefinitely. The company’s ‘think globally, act locally’ strategy has already given them a foothold in three European countries, and they are working on expanding to further territories. ‘The recycling of PT bottles is not endless. Each time you melt PET the chemical structure changes and it becomes brittle,’ says Sven. ‘There are several clothing companies (including some big names we won’t mention here) pretending that they are using PET fibre from the ocean – but there is no PET fibre from the ocean – otherwise we would use it! ‘Thanks to the saltwater and UV light, the structure of the plastic changes and it becomes very brittle. You could never make
a sneaker out of the fibre, and we can’t use it either. The only thing you can do with ocean plastic is melt it all together and make something out of it, and maybe mix it with cleaner recycled plastic similar to Coral Reef.’ Taking the shredded acoustic offcuts, The Good Plastic Company performed a feasibility test, creating Coral Reef, a beautiful bespoke pattern that reflects the environmental and social aspects of the two companies. The constituent materials are a coral pink PET that could otherwise contaminate our oceans, and a lagoon-blue PS plastic resembling calm sea water. Together, they represent the underwater ecosystem that we want to protect from pollution by re-using post-industrial waste. The panels can be used for furniture and various design elements – and can be further recycled at the end of its life. ‘As much as I talk about whitewashing, at least people are talking about it – and it will get better,’ Sven says. ‘Right now, the technology isn’t there to make something really good out of ocean plastics, but if more and more people talk about it, and more NGOs and start-ups start working with recycling and the circular economy, the better it will get.’w
STRENGTH & SIMPLICITY
DESIGNERS & MANUFACTURERS OF WORKSPACE FURNITURE
www.gof.co.uk
UPFRONT Desert Island Desks
Desert island desks BIANCA YOUSEF, 74 Bianca is an Associate at Manchester-based architecture and interior design studio, 74. As the company’s longestserving employee – and a former Mix Interiors ’30 under 30’ star – Bianca has headed up projects across workspace, BTR, PBSA and the hospitality sectors.
A telescope
A top-of-the-range drum kit
I was given a telescope as a gift years ago and would love to try it out away from the city lights. I’ve always been fascinated by astronomy and all the intricate instruments that go along with it. Stargazing using a beautiful object on a remote island sounds perfect.
Practicing playing the drums as a teenager in my bedroom with terrible acoustics was not fun for me or my family! I’ve recently bought an electric drum kit to get back into it (and to be kind to my neighbours), so it would be amazing to have the best acoustic kit available and practice with no one but the birds to hear me.
A comfy bed Sleeping under the stars wouldn’t be a problem but sleeping on the ground would be and I love to sleep! A big comfy bed to get a good night’s kip is all I need to keep me going.
A portable library of horror books I love a good book and specifically a great horror story – it may not be the best idea but let’s see if I enjoy them as much on a desert island full of strange and unknown sounds! There would have to be some Ira Levin and plenty of Stephen King in the library.
A disco light One Christmas someone at work gave me a disco light as a Secret Santa present – I think it was meant to be a joke – but it displays a pretty impressive light show and, embarrassingly, I’ve become attached to it! I just need to find a cave on the island so I can set up my own cave rave…
18 | Mix 205 September 2020
Baking ingredients I find baking relaxing and almost therapeutic so would have to find a way to make baking happen. One of my favourite recipes is Nigella’s indulgent Guinness Cake. The best thing about this recipe is that there’s always a bit of Guinness left over at the end. So, if I could have an endless supply of ingredients please?
A cat It would be great to have a companion on the island and a classic tabby cat would be my ultimate pet of choice – they’re affectionate but can also fend for themselves. It would be a bonus if they could catch fish for dinner!
Tracks for the juxebox Jurassic 5 – Concrete Schoolyard A hip-hop classic. Perfect to chill out to in the sunshine. Pixies – Where is my mind? An amazing song. It also features perfectly in the final scene of one of my favourite films – Fight Club. It may well be a question I end up asking myself if I’m cast away for too long. Chic – I want your love There’s a reason why someone bought me a disco light! I love a bit of disco and this song is one of the best. Orbital – Halcyon On and On I saw them at Bluedot Festival at Jodrell Bank Observatory a few years back, so listening to it fills me with memories. One for the cave rave! Fleetwood Mac – Big Love It’s hard to decide which song of theirs I would pick but Lindsey Buckingham’s acoustic version of Big Love is insanely good. His skill impresses me every time I hear it. Pendulum – Hold Your Colour Gets your blood pumping, especially during a good run. Queen – Don’t Stop me Now It’s just a fun, feel-good track! Great for a pick-me-up.w
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CON FIGU R E ON LIN E: • U PH OL S T E RY F I N I S H E S • FRA M E M AT E RI A L S • ME TA LW ORK COLOU RS • A D D -ON TA B L E S • MOD U L A R
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UPFRONT Seven
7
insights into acoustic wellbeing in the workplace
With the popularity of exposed brick, polished concrete, and floor-to-ceiling glass in contemporary workplace design, acoustics are often an afterthought. Here, experts in interior acoustics, Autex, present seven insights into acoustic wellbeing in the workplace.
1
NOISE AFFECTS EVERYONE DIFFERENTLY Studies* show that introverted people struggle to focus in noisy environments, as they’re more sensitive to external stimuli than their extraverted co-workers. If their workplace doesn’t offer dedicated ‘quiet zones’ or breakout spaces, they are likely to suffer from heightened stress and fatigue.
Autex London Showroom
4 5
*dobbs, s., furnham, a., mcclelland, a. (2010). the effect of
background music and noise on the cognitive test performance of introverts and extraverts. applied cognitive psychology, 25, 307-313.
2 3
NOISE CAUSES FATIGUE AND STRESS In open plan workspaces with no acoustic treatment, office noise is a constant distraction. While it’s true that extraverts find it easier to focus in noisy environments, everyone – regardless of personality type – is susceptible to listener fatigue. Symptoms of prolonged exposure to auditory stimuli range from tiredness, through to pain and high blood pressure; easily prevented by creating ‘quiet zones’ where staff can retreat to focus or take a break.
ACOUSTIC PRIVACY IS VITAL Acoustic treatment creates a sense of privacy, providing space for staff to have confidential meetings or take personal phone calls. Acoustic privacy allows staff to feel like they have control over their workday, boosting both job performance and morale. Installing acoustic desk screens is a great way to create both visual and acoustic privacy in open plan spaces.
22 | Mix 205 September 2020
6 7
NOISE DISRUPTS PRODUCTIVITY When studying the impact of sound on how we think, psychologist Nick Perham discovered that office noise impairs workers’ ability to recall information and do basic arithmetic. In busy open plan environments, even quiet conversations can disrupt productivity. For workplaces that thrive on both individual and collaborative work, this is an important factor to consider.
COLLABORATING IN THE ‘NEW NORMAL’ As a growing number of people are working from home, modern workplaces need to provide spaces for people to collaborate with team members online. Acoustically treated meeting rooms and breakout spaces designed to support video calls are a great way to ensure collaboration can continue without distraction.
ACOUSTIC TREATMENT IS EASY TO RETROFIT As many interior acoustic products are designed to be retrofitted, applying acoustic treatment in existing office spaces is easy. Ceiling systems such as Autex Frontier and Lattice are perfect for large open plan offices and busy cafeterias, and can be easily installed with a simple suspension kit. In offices lacking both visual and acoustic privacy, Cascade Hanging Screens and Vicinity Desk Screens can be used to separate working zones without sacrificing collaboration.
WHERE IS ACOUSTIC TREATMENT NEEDED MOST? You don’t need to pack your space with acoustic treatment for it to be effective. The most important areas to treat are open plan spaces, meeting rooms, breakout spaces, and rooms with lots of reflective surfaces – think glass, marble and polished concrete. Applying acoustic treatment in these spaces will control echo and reverberation, lowering the overall noise levels.w
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UPFRONT Steve Gale
The Matrix is as real as your desk Steve Gale admits the office as we know it is under threat, but its virtual cousin is just getting going.
Steve Gale is Head of Workplace Strategy at M Moser Associates. SteveG@mmoser.com
W
hat do you think of when you hear the word workplace? It probably suggests a physical location that you can feel and photograph, a built thing with weight, colour and texture. But the biggest and most important part of our workplace is invisible, intangible and huge, and it grew without any effort from us – we put in less effort than we use to turn on a bath tap. Our regular working environment has been an office, or more recently, a corner of our home, or sometimes a table in a café or a train. These places were curated to keep out the weather and provide a modicum of comfort. We just needed to add our own personal magic and a couple of plug-in tools and the result was output, productivity, information, creation. But this is a skewed view of the modern world. The workplace is now principally a virtual infrastructure, like a subterranean mycelium designed and owned by others, not us, not even our employers. We work every day in a deeply sophisticated digital environment powered by electrons marshalled in conductors and switches in phones, screens, computers, amplifiers, transmitters and receivers. They do our bidding to record events, build imaginary scenes, tell stories, generate drawings, display moving images, store information, transmit sound and relay messages. The internet retrieves data instantly by a process as mysterious as tossing a message in a bottle into the Thames and having someone retrieve it one second later and read it in Sydney. We think nothing of speaking to several people at once, with live video,
located in different countries on our mobile phones. We entrust our vital data to be stored in a ‘cloud’ which we can’t see – and never will. We risk transmitting sensitive financial information and transactions via unseen channels. Artificial intelligence, or machine learning, tells us what we want before we know we want it, beats you at chess, and translates a conversation into several languages. Electronic energy is sculpted into music, films, voices and text and transferred by radio signals to and from our devices. Wi-Fi at home and in your coffee shop is just the beginning; there are entire cities with free wireless networks, and there are plans to cover the rest of the planet with drones, high altitude balloons and orbiting satellites. So, this is now the workplace. Our offices and handy bits of furniture can seem important with their traditional status, but we can mix and match desks, and put up with old office buildings. They can even add some quaint charm if handled well. But when our broadband fails, we lose a mobile signal, our laptop refuses to boot, or our phone runs out of battery, grumpiness is not the outcome, it is more likely rage, panic, fear and depression. The physical workplace is important – it is also my living – but it plays second fiddle to the invisible workplace in the sky or, more accurately, the cloud, and for better or worse we should pay more attention to it.w
Mix 205 September 2020 | 25
UPFRONT Perspective
indeed, designed by HLW
Perspective HLW’s London office has recently welcomed Pendrick Brown as Principal, demonstrating its commitment to developing and growing the business. We ask him to tell us all about himself and his exciting new role.
What will your role at HLW entail? I have been brought into HLW to support the growth of its London team and further strengthen its commercial focus, which touches every element of the business and our work for clients. For investors, developers, landlords or occupiers, I will work directly on projects with our team of talented architects and designers, helping to ensure that the creative design direction is always grounded on a firm commercial base, alongside the needs of our clients’ people, culture and the space. Working with the Business Development and Marketing teams, I’ll be driving return on investment, whilst maintaining and strengthening our position in the UK and wider European markets as the go-to firm for clients who want bespoke designs that tell their unique story.
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Tricky one for you: how would you describe your own expertise? I have been fortunate to work with leading lights in our sector and some of the strongest companies from a commercial perspective across the built environment – from architecture, design, engineering and project management to in-house roles at legal and professional services firms. With a specialism in client management and business development, the roles I have undertaken have given me a broad perspective and knowledge about what clients and projects need from their professional teams. I understand the drivers behind projects of all types and appreciate how important they are for clients and their teams. This insight helps us design and deliver with both the clients’ creative and commercial aspirations at heart.
UPFRONT Perspective
Please tell us a little about your career progression to date It certainly hasn’t followed a traditional path. I left university with a burning desire to maintain close links to the sporting world and carve out a profession there. That wasn’t to be, but my passion for sport remained, so I set up a cricket equipment company and designed a new range – which was moderately successful for a few years. Then followed a move into the property world and project management, where I became a partner at a fairly young age. Realising that I wanted a greater understanding of real estate, I left to join a £500m turnover MEP company to truly learn how a building lives and breathes. Next was a move to architecture and several years at two global architecture firms, sandwiched by an interesting and rewarding time with two top 20 UK (now global) law firms. This provided a masterclass in stakeholder management, how to grow into international markets and insight into deal making and negotiation. Lastly, I worked as a commercial and project director before finding my home at HLW.
What attracted you to HLW and this particular role? A market leader in creative and innovative design, with a mission to question the norm, who design with passion and build what’s next, HLW is one of the few firms in the industry that has built up an exceedingly good name for itself on the back of continual excellence in their bespoke designs and first-rate delivery. I have known and worked with them for well over a decade, most recently appointing them for a client where I was then the Project Director. I know first-hand how well they work as a team, internally and on a project. They certainly make the life of a project manager a lot easier. Their attention to detail, willingness to bend as the project requires and noncontentious approach, coupled with being the type of people you want to go for a drink with, no matter how tough a week it has been, are all factors that drew me to working there. The outstanding ability of the team and the quality of the people also drew me to HLW. Bronte Turner, the European MD, has taken the studio on and led brilliantly from the front, creating a loyal, dedicated and determined team, and winning more than her fair share of top tier projects. I now have the chance to bring my commercial acumen to HLW in the drive to provide an ever-improving service to clients. I simply couldn’t turn it down.
You have considerable experience working with leading legal firms. How would you describe the sector right now (in lieu of COVID-19)? I believe that the legal sector has the most to gain at the moment. It had been evolving relatively slowly, but enforced remote working has accelerated even the most progressive law firm’s outlook on the office environment. Never has it been less important to have designed a hundred other law firms’ offices, than it is to have designed the most flexible and forwardthinking workplaces, as we review what we want from our office. HLW has worked with leading global technology companies and designed spaces that enable what we term ‘High Value Interactions’. This affords us a unique advantage that the legal world can benefit from, not just from a cost reduction viewpoint but, more importantly, from a collaborative, training, mentoring, cross-selling and cultural perspective.
What are you currently saying to clients who are looking to get their people to return to the workplace? We are recommending that clients create a space that benefits the employees and the employer. Make it enticing, rewarding, productive, collaborative and engaging. If there is one lesson to learn from the pandemic, then the need to have a robust remote working policy is key. Understanding what the business and individual needs is critical to driving the redesign of your space to
fully maximise the return from your real estate investment. When this includes cost reductions, which it should, all the better. Companies should make sure that the inevitable change we all expect to see is managed. A clear programme and objectives will result in an attractive and efficient workplace, one that drives high value interactions.
What innovative design solutions can end users currently consider when looking to enhance a return on investment? The good news is that there are many design solutions that are both innovative and proven. The top tech firms have been leading the charge in redefining their spaces, with flexibility and adaptability at the very heart. We have designed many of these spaces across the UK, Europe and the world for the pioneering few. Now we have the chance to take the learnings and apply them in the creation of bespoke solutions that optimise the workplace for each end user’s unique and diverse needs, in any sector. A robust remote working policy can reduce the need for task-based activity within the workplace so the space requirement should reduce, in some sectors dramatically, creating a cost reduction. This then allows for slightly greater investment on a smaller floorplate and greater ROI from the focus on these higher value interactions in whatever form each individual company needs. You don’t have to be a tech firm to be progressive. The design world is open for change, progression and making working environments all-round better places.w
Sanofi offices, designed by HLW
ID Manchester.
Schools back? The chaos surrounding A-level grading and university admissions in late August crowned a chaotic year for the UK’s higher education sector, David Thame considers.
28 | Mix 205 September 2020
T
he threat that coronavirus would (then did) make campus teaching impossible, the flight of lucrative international students (paying fees of £7 billion), fears that they would not return and that finances would be so severely squeezed that at least a dozen universities might have to close, left the post-COVID higher education world gasping for breath. The implications for education-related property looked dire. Given the enormous range of university and campus buildings, the many spin-off developments at science parks, and the hefty investment in purpose-built student accommodation, any slow-down in the university world meant headaches for developers, contractors and fit-out businesses. A relief, then, to find the new academic year beginning amidst optimism for a sector that generates £18 billion a year for the UK
photo: manchester university
economy. Even so, gently rising confidence comes with the heavily-underlined reservation that the next four months will be make or break. The purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) world is still new, and had a terrible spring 2020. Private operators forgave or forgot more than £500 million worth of rent as universities closed and students went back to live with their parents. Yet, long-term, the rising university-age population means demand for PBSA has to grow, despite the pain of the 2019/20, and probably 2020/21, academic years. Developers have either decided to press on, or to pause and consider, depending on their temperament and who is providing their money. Alan Pearce, South West Head of Planning Development & Regeneration at consultancy Lambert Smith Hampton, says: ‘My clients are
PROPERTY Education
pushing on where there is a known need for accommodation in prime cities and are just as active where there is a contractual arrangement or on purchased sites. ‘Some clients are also actively still investigating new sites, given there is a lead-in until delivery – so in effect potentially up to a year in planning and then two-year build time. So, the assumption is, quite rightly, that in 2023 there will be a need.’ The problem is not a lack of confidence in PBSA, but a generalised investor reluctance to do any spending until the economy becomes a little easier to read. ‘The depth of the investment market is still pretty shallow,’ warns Savills’ Partner, James Hanmer. ‘A lot of investors are waiting to see what occupancy of PBSA looks like in September. They are being very selective, which to me seems a bit nonsensical because vendors are offering rental guarantees and, even if PBSA occupancy levels go down a little in 2020-21, the trend is firmly up. You only need to look at the high volume of applications to UK universities to see that, so things may not turn out to be quite the horror story in 2020-21 some have supposed.’
Russell Heffernan is a Partner at Cushman & Wakefield, advising the investors who stump up the cash to build new PBSA. He says the mood is positive. ‘In March there was a lot of nerves, a lot of concern about income in 2020, and a lot of investors treating PBSA as if it was suffering like hotels, which they saw as similar. Now there is more optimism, because people see that PBSA is not the same income proposition as hotels,’ he says. ‘You can see the investor optimisms in the deals done, with July showing more money invested than in February, before the pandemic lockdown.’ Thanks to rental guarantees from vendors, yields have remained staggeringly strong. Good London PBSA earns a yield of around 3.75%. The lower the yield, the hotter the property because yields are driven down by fierce competition to own an asset where the income is felt to be assured. Oxford Street shops and City of London offices are several points behind, and even warehouses (today’s seriously hot property) don’t get much lower than 4.5%. Regional PBSA is a little cheaper, with Manchester yields at a little over 5%.
‘Investors see the pandemic as a bump in the road, not a blockage in the road,’ says Russell. This means more money coming into the sector, meaning more developer and more PBSA rooms to fit out over the two to three years. However, the news for universities’ own development of new teaching and laboratory space is a little less upbeat. Cushman & Wakefield Partner, Sarah Jones, says universities are largely sitting on their hands until they have a better idea of their student numbers, income from home students, and the prospects for international student retention. Sometime after January, when A-level re-sits will be completed and a second 2020-21 academic year intake may be completed, they will reassess. The same caution will govern their partnerships with external developers and plans to exploit land holdings. On-campus commercial developments, science parks, and ambitious plans to make sense of now defunct campus sites – like the University of Manchester’s £1.5 billion ID Manchester tech-meets-city living scheme – may have to take second place to the business of student retention. ‘Management time will be highly focused on the day job of recruitment.
Calico Student Living, Liverpool, designed by Naomi Cleaver for client Foundry. Photo: Ed Reeve.
Mix 205 September 2020 | 29
PROPERTY Education
There are capacity issues and income-stream issues they need to focus on. It will be all hands to be pump. But that period of preoccupation may not take very long. By January 2021 they will know student intake from UK A-level re-sits, and whether international students are back, and then they might be keen to get on with developments,’ Sarah says. The sudden (unexpected) removal of a UK government-imposed cap on student recruitment numbers in August 2020 also opened the door to more development to meet additional demand. Sarah also predicts that a renewed focus on efficiency could produce opportunities for new development as older, outdated educational and student housing floorspace finally faces the chop. ‘The universities’ property needs, post-COVID, will be different. There are decisions to make about design. For instance, smaller cluster flats where six or seven students can form a household, and where their key fobs mean you can trace their movements on campus for contact tracing – well, that is genius. On the other hand, older high density shared accommodation with lots of people sharing bathrooms isn’t going to work – probably isn’t open – and will need to be reduced in density,’ Sarah explains. PBSA developers have also been thinking about postCOVID design, and their focus is on more staircases and elevators. ‘Easier for infection control,’ says Russell. For now, the higher education sector is waiting to see how the new academic year performs: triumph or disaster? ‘Everyone’s waiting to see who turns up, and by November 2020 they will know,’ sways Savills’ James Hanmer. ‘We don’t think it will be anywhere near as bad as the more bearish estimates. But the truth is it’s going to take most of September and October before this is played out, as universities and PBSA operators watch student numbers.’ 2020 has been a dreadful year for universities, but the horror story also reveals the source of the sector’s strength: a growing cohort of young people who want to go to college. ‘The A-level fiasco took a year of uncertainty and turned it into one of unprecedented disruption. But it underlines the willingness of UK students to go to university and all the conversations about this year’s turbulence end in the fact that the demography is pushing that number of students up,’ Sarah says. Meanwhile the weak pound means international students have a huge financial incentive to resume, or begin, their studies in the UK. The UK higher education sector faces a testing four months. It could still all go wrong. But if they survive until January then the prospects look good. That means more educational floorspace, more campus development, and a lot more PBSA.w
30 | Mix 205 September 2020
Investors still loves student accommodation Investment in the UK student accommodation market hit a record £5.15 billion in the first seven months of 2020, despite a fall in transactional activity since February. The figures, released by Cushman & Wakefield, revealed that transactional volumes for the sector will be one of the highest on record this year. To be fair, the figures are skewed by the sale of student accommodation provider iQ to Blackstone for £4.7 billion (the
largest ever UK private real estate deal) in February. The number of transactions fell by 60% from last year, largely due to the impact of COVID-19. However, July saw the most deals on a monthly basis since February, indicating a return in confidence to the sector amid greater certainty about the 2020/21 academic year. According to UCAS, 358,860 students across the UK have been
PROPERTY Education
Developing Story Under pressure to diversify their income and make best use of their (often large) property portfolios, universities are turning into bigtime developers. This summer, the University of Manchester announced the competitive tender process has begun to find its development and investment partner to deliver what is billed as a new world-class innovation district. The 4 million sq ft ID Manchester scheme, to be built on the former UMIST campus site in the city centre, has an estimated gross development value of £1.5 billion. Together with the right partner, the University says it ‘will leverage the global reach of its commercial partnerships and research institutions,’ while matching it with the connected innovation ecosystems already formed around the Oxford Road Corridor. The University occupies the recently opened £60 million Masdar
Building, home to the Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre, and the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology at the south end of the site, and is currently looking for a partner to develop the remaining 18 acres. Near neighbour, Salford University, is one step further down the development path and has chosen English Cities Fund as development partner for the £2.5 billion Salford Crescent masterplan. The fund – a strategic joint venture between urban regenerators, Muse Developments, Legal & General and Homes England – will now lead on the creation of a major new 240-acre city district in Salford over the next 10-15 years. It has the potential to create 3,000 new homes, 1 million sq ft of commercial and innovation space for health automation and robotics, as well as 1 million sq ft of education floorspace.w
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BOHO student living, designed by KKA Interiors
accepted for places at university for 2020/21, up 2.9% on 2019. The number of students accepted to higher tariff institutions has also risen to a record high, with almost a third of students set to study at these universities. Cushman & Wakefield estimates there is circa
£1.5bn of assets available in the UK, with approximately 15% of this currently under offer. The figure is below 2019 levels, which stood at £2.2bn for the same period. In addition to new and existing stock, more than £300m of assets are on hold and likely to come back to the market later this year.w
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SPOTLIGHT
WHERE’S YOUR HEAD AT?
A
s the vast majority of you will know, we’re primarily a workplace design and culture title, and we’re happy to admit that the ever-more-prominent subject of mental health is not something we have any expertise in. Like many people, we’re just starting to learn about it and, as we do, we find that our attitudes are shifting. What is certain is that the subject of mental wellness has, quite rightly, never been higher on the agenda. One thing we do have is some great industry friends, who in turn have great industry friends, who know a great deal about mental health. Thanks to our friends and their friends, we’ve been able to bring together a compelling and thought-provoking series of expert opinions.w
Mix 205 September 2020 | 33
SPOTLIGHT The Big Question
THE BIG QUESTION
As we juggle the demands of work and home life within the same four walls, what advice do you have for ways to unwind and de-stress?
Gavin Hughes Design Director, hlw Juggling work and childcare (two-year-old twins!) responsibilities have been challenging at times. It is imperative that we maintain clear distinction between work and personal life, even when both physically cohabit. It’s not a new concept that mental breaks replenish attention, increase productivity, solidify memories and encourage creativity. My wife and I are enjoying themed ‘film seasons’ to avoid getting caught in the ‘endless scrolling through Netflix’ trap. Recently we covered Brian De Palma’s early films, followed by Harrison Ford’s lesser known titles of yesteryear (who knew he played a doctor so many times?).
Sarah Dodsworth Creative Director, SpaceInvader As a full-time working – and now also homeschooling – mum of two young boys, I don’t consider myself an expert on de-stressing. I have found solace, however, in getting out of the house into fresh air. Being able to access nature, whether for a bike ride (no Lycra) or to take the dog out is so calming and therapeutic. It’s not so much for the exercise but the headspace. It works as a form of therapy for all.
Vicky Kingsnorth Marketing Manager & Mental Health First Aider, Thirdway
Jon Holdings General Manager, CMD We’ve been so busy at CMD with demand for our homeworking solutions, it’s not always easy to find time to unwind. Homeworking has meant more family time for me: I’ve got back into kickboxing – being my son’s punchbag while we spar is surprisingly good for letting off steam together!
34 | Mix 205 September 2020
Self-nourishment is essential. I make dates with myself to do things I enjoy, and actually put them in my diary so I stick to them. Whether it’s chatting with friends, meditating, spending a lunch break reading my book, or scheduling in time to cook something amazing, I know that it is just as important for my wellbeing and performance to show up for those ‘appointments’ as it is to show up for work. If you struggle to switch off, make 30-minute dates with yourself at 5.30pm to help define your work/life balance and ease into your own time doing something you love.
Richard Costin, Chief Executive, Bisley I like to exercise each day – either running or walking – where I manage to get some relaxing and thinking time. My ideal time is chilling out with a nice bottle of red wine. Before the pandemic, my weekends would consist of watching my football team with friends and socialising – probably a little too much!
Sally Marshall Associate Director, Turner & Townsend I am very fortunate with my work from home set-up; I have a comfortable, wellconnected and well-lit space and the Turner & Townsend occupier team have created a supportive environment. One thing that helps give me a break from work and stress is the amount of self-learning I’ve been able to do. So much amazing content has been developed by the likes of CoreNet, BCO and others – it really makes me feel as though I have achieved something for my own personal development. Also, there have been a multitude of free online exercise classes provided by some fantastic individuals across our industry (you know who you are!).
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SPOTLIGHT Mental Health
Chris Cummings CEO, Sonas Group Chris is CEO of Sonas Group, organisers of The Wellbeing @ Work Summits around the world, The InsideOut Awards in the UK and The Wellbeing @ Work Hub – a global community of leaders helping to achieve excellence in workplace wellbeing.
Hi Chris. How are you today?
Why do you think mental health has suddenly become the key topic when it comes to people talking about wellbeing?
I am really well thank you. I have been eating well, exercising regularly and getting plenty of sleep, so my form is particularly good!
We’ve heard nothing but good things about your organisation and the InsideOut awards. Can you tell us a little about both, and your own involvement? I’m CEO of Sonas Group and for the last seven years we have organised The Wellbeing @ Work Summits around the world, bringing together leaders from organisations to help improve their mental health and wellbeing strategies for employees. The InsideOut Awards is an annual event held in London that recognises individuals and organisations that are excelling on the mental health agenda and championing it. We also have a global membership workplace wellbeing community called The Wellbeing @ Work Hub. I was personally motivated to start this movement due to a poor experience that my partner, who has anxiety and depression, experienced at work and it’s now my mission to help organisations around the world to become more culturally healthier and happier places for employees to work in.
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We all have mental health, just like physical health. There is no mental health without physical health – the two are completely intertwined. Sometimes our physical health is not so great, but it is usually obvious, whereas with poor mental health it is often not, and mental ill health is prevalent with work often being a cause. The key point here is that the stigma is being reduced and individuals feel more comfortable talking about it now and organisations are realising the importance of the subject. When we first started the summits, seven years ago, there was a big stigma attached to experiencing mental ill health and whilst there is still work to do, thankfully, we have driven the conversation forward and action is being taken.
Is poor mental health on the rise – or is it awareness of the subject that is growing? Has the stigma once associated with mental health issues disappeared? Awareness is growing and the global pandemic has certainly accelerated the conversation, but we all have mental health. If I don’t get a good sleep, I eat junk food and drink alcohol, my mental health the following day is poor, my decision-making is slower and I feel anxious and lethargic, which means my performance and productivity at work is low. If I work in an organisation where the culture does not allow you to speak up, then I will suffer in silence. Leaders want high-performing and healthy teams in their organisations, so creating an open culture
where individuals can speak up and be healthy has got to be a win/win.
Has COVID/lockdown caused an increase in poor mental health issues – or is it more that it is bringing the issue to the fore? Many of the causes of poor mental health have been heightened during COVID – such as job security, financial worries, home schooling, working longer hours etc – so, yes, there has certainly been an increase. Thankfully, the conversation within organisations and more generally has developed,so there has been some great work by businesses to support their workforce and those are the organisations that will prosper as we come out of this crisis.
Are we heading for what some members of the press are calling a ‘mental health tsunami’? I really hope not, but a lot will depend on how businesses and governments respond. There has been some incredibly fast pivoting by businesses over the last six months and some incredibly successful wellbeing and mental health strategies
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Create an open, inclusive culture within your organisation, normalise mental health in all your communications, make the wellbeing and mental health of your staff a strategic priority
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SPOTLIGHT Mental Health
put in place in super quick time, so I am hopeful – but there are still many leaders who are not truly putting their people first and they will lose talent quickly if they don’t support them.
How can the physical workplace help with regards to helping people cope with mental health issues?
What should employers be doing to ensure that their people have the best possible support when it comes to their mental health?
I think the physical workspace has a crucial role to play. Whilst the acceleration of technology has provided flexibility for employees, not everyone has a dedicated office space at home and many people need to physically go to an office environment for separation of home life and collaboration with colleagues. I also think that the physical environment needs to adapt and change to accommodate our new way of working and create environments that support wellbeing and mental health.
Create an open, inclusive culture within your organisation, normalise mental health in all your communications, make the wellbeing and mental health of your staff a strategic priority. My prediction is that the best talent will look elsewhere if they are not getting this support from their current employer and, according to Deloitte’s most recent report, poor mental health costs employers over £45billion each year, so it really should be top of the corporate agenda.
Do you have any tips for our readers when it comes to helping themselves deal with their own mental health?
I would say keep it simple and lead a physically healthy lifestyle to ensure good mental health. Eat healthy and nutritious foods, exercise regularly, spend time in nature, get enough sleep, look after your digital wellbeing by reducing notifications on your phone and have email breaks after a certain time, connect with friends and family and try to be present during these times. Be open and talk to people you can trust, share how you are feeling and, if you need to seek professional help, please do so immediately.w The next Wellbeing @ Work Summit takes place (virtually) in Singapore on 16 September – go to fowinsights.com for information about this and further upcoming summits. For more information about the Inside Out Awards, go to inside-out.org
Deborah Wilder Head of Research and Strategy, Interaction (supporter of Mates in Mind) Interaction is a leading office design and fit-out specialist, working in Bath, Bristol, Birmingham and a range of other locations. The firm is a sponsor of Mate in Mind – a charitable programme helping to improve and promote positive mental health in the workplace and within the construction industry.
Please tell us more about Mates in Mind – and Interaction’s involvement with the organisation. Mates in Mind was founded in 2016 after the Health in Construction Leadership Group hosted a summit for CEOs and leaders from across construction who overwhelmingly voted to improve the mental wellbeing of its workforce. Interaction was proud to become an official supporter in 2020.
What prompted the business to become involved with Mates in Mind? Interaction are a workplace design and build business, who have always placed a huge
emphasis on culture and staff wellbeing; after all, that’s one of the areas of expertise our clients turn to us for. So we were shocked at the statistics that hit the news in summer 2019. When we heard that more than one construction worker a day takes their own life – three times the UK rate for men – we knew we had to do whatever we could to prevent this from happening. The design and the finished result of the amazing new workplaces we create are the bits that are seen and celebrated. People often don’t get to see behind the scenes and realise that we are a construction business, with between 200 and 300 operatives working on our sites across the UK on any given day. We started by getting involved with the charity Mind. We got advice and support, and shared information with all of our site operatives. We then started training up mental
health first aiders and this is extending from representatives in the office to all of our site managers. During the pandemic we wanted to continue with our efforts, and we came across Mates in Mind, who were offering online mental health courses such as Start the Conversation and Manage the Conversation.
Why are mental health issues so prevalent throughout construction sites? Cultural expectations play a big role in construction workers not feeling comfortable about expressing their emotions or asking for support. It’s still a heavily male dominated environment where you’re more likely to hear someone say ‘man up’ rather than ‘are you alright – do you want to have a chat?’ On
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SPOTLIGHT Mental Health
top of this, 41% of construction workers are self-employed, giving them less job security, less continuity, and making them less likely to feel that there is someone around looking out for them. We think we are mitigating the risk somewhat by increasing diversity in our workforce – we are proud to have a 50/50 gender split in our employees. And we are exploring ways of encouraging more women operatives to work for us on site.
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It’s still a heavily male dominated environment where you’re more likely to hear someone say ‘man up’ rather than ‘are you alright – do you want to have a chat?’
”Is poor mental health on the rise on construction sites – or is it awareness of the subject that is growing? We think it has probably always been this bad – the awareness has just grown. Perhaps construction sites are one of the last bastions of ‘macho man’.
Has the stigma once associated with mental health issues disappeared? No. It may have reduced a little as slightly more people talk about it, but the ‘just man up’ approach is still rife in construction. The stigma
of mental health problems can make people feel fearful of opening up, particularly if they are worried their job could be at risk.
Has COVID/lockdown caused an increase in poor mental health issues – or is it more that it is bringing the issue to the fore? The pandemic, particularly in the first few weeks of lockdown, was really tough for construction workers. While our researchers, designers and project managers could all work in the relative safety of their own homes, our site managers and operatives had to get back on site, as soon as we had put all social distancing and hygiene measures in place. We are now all back in the office, but for several months our construction site workers were our super heroes – out on the front line doing what they had to do to keep our business running.
Are we heading for what some members of the press are calling a ‘mental health tsunami’? Perhaps for some, yes. While working with clients to help them develop their COVID-19 return to work strategies, our Workplace Strategy and Research team have found that many people have struggled with isolation, many are now struggling with re-integration into their working and social lives, and some are suffering from a mild form of PTSD. And our construction workers, through their exposure to the risk when most were working at home or on furlough, may have experienced worry and anxiety, both on behalf of
themselves and their families. On the other hand, construction workers may have been protected from various mental issues by not being subject to the psychological rollercoaster of isolation and reintegration.
What should construction companies be doing to ensure that their people have the best possible support when it comes to their mental health? First, focus on your culture and strategy – create a culture of openness and honesty, where people can ask for help. Provide excellent training and career development, making your people feel valued and that they belong. Second, join Mates in Mind – they give excellent support, guidance and training for construction workers as well as the people in the office. Look at other sources of mental health support, such as the charity Mind. Train up site managers and other key people to be mental health first aiders. Make sure you have excellent welfare facilities on sites, such as comfortable breakouts, so that all the different trades get to know each other and get used to talking to each other. Encourage them into those spaces by holding breakfast get-togethers and regular social events.w For more information about Mates in Mind, go to www.matesinmind.org
Dr Jo Yarker CEO, Affinity Health at Work, Birkbeck, University of London Jo is passionate about understanding what we can do to foster fulfilling, healthy and productive work, particularly under times of challenge. She is an award-winning occupational psychologist, specialising work, health and wellbeing. Jo is a Director of Affinity Health at Work, and leads the Professional Doctorate in Organisational Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London, in both roles she works in a job-share with Dr Rachel Lewis. 38 | Mix 205 September 2020
What prompted you to first become involved with mental health? I was in a lift going up to the 24th floor of a London office block as an eager, new graduate starting my new job and was surprised to see so many people around me looking pretty unimpressed with their lot, despite holding sought-after jobs, working in beautiful spaces and earning well. I can remember thinking, ‘Why are some people happy and thriving at work, while others are not?’ It has taken me on a long fascinating journey to help people lead better working lives. Mental health is a central component of that.
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Why do you think mental health has suddenly become the key topic when it comes to people talking about wellbeing? Not prioritising mental health is no longer an option. Deloitte reported that poor mental health costs UK employers £45 billion last year. The excellent work done by Time to Talk and Mates in Mind, among others, have started to break down barriers, tackling the stigma of mental health and opening up conversations. We also have a better understanding of what employers can do to help. The pandemic, and the challenges it has brought, have brought mental health into sharp focus for all of us and so organisations are realising they need to move beyond their wellbeing offers – of gyms, free fruit in the office, yoga classes – to provide more comprehensive mental health provision.
Is poor mental health on the rise – or is it awareness of the subject that is growing? Has the stigma once associated with mental health issues disappeared? There is evidence to suggest that poor mental health is on the rise, particularly as we are now in the midst of the pandemic. For example, in the recent Mind survey, more than 16,000 people shared their experience and not only did those with mental health problems report these had got worse, but people reported experiencing mental ill-health for the first time. Thankfully, there is promising evidence from past pandemics and crises to suggest that, for many, these mental health problems will lift in time. We
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We need to help people understand what they can do for themselves to look after their mental health, and we need to have systems in place to provide timely and appropriate support for people when they need help
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SPOTLIGHT Mental Health
have come a long way in addressing the stigma of mental ill-health, but it has by no means disappeared. There is still a long journey ahead until people feel comfortable opening up about their experience and how it is impacting them and their work.
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Are we heading for what some members of the press are calling a ‘mental health tsunami’? There are certainly significant concerns and, if we do not take action now, there could be long-lasting effects for millions of people. We need to help people understand what they can do for themselves to look after their mental health, and we need to have systems in place to provide timely and appropriate support for people when they need help.
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The pandemic, and the challenges it has brought, have brought mental health into sharp focus for all of us and so organisations are realising they need to move beyond their wellbeing offers – of gyms, free fruit in the office, yoga classes – to provide more comprehensive mental health provision
” What should employers be doing to ensure that their people have the best possible support when it comes to their mental health? There are a number of things employers can do – and it is not just about providing support when things go wrong. The Stevenson/Farmer review of mental health and employers identified six core standards that every organisation should adopt: • Produce, implement and communicate a mental health at work plan/strategy that encourages and promotes good
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mental health of all staff and an open organisational culture. Develop mental health awareness among employees by making information, tools and support accessible. Encourage open conversations about mental health and the support available when employees are struggling, during the recruitment process and at regular intervals throughout employment, with appropriate workplace adjustments offered to employees who require them. Provide your employees with good working conditions and ensure they have a healthy work/life balance and opportunities for development. Promote effective people management to ensure all employees have a regular conversation about their health and wellbeing with their line manager, supervisor or organisational leader and train and support line managers in effective management practices. Routinely monitor employee mental health and wellbeing by understanding available data, talking to employees, and understanding risk factors.
How can the physical workplace help with regards to helping people cope with mental health issues? The physical workplace can help in many ways. Biophilic design has been found to play a significant role in supporting mental health and, while there is less research directly examining the benefits between other ambient factors and mental health, there is good evidence linking natural light, ventilation, temperature and noise to wellbeing and comfort. Activity based working designs are increasingly popular and, although not a blanket solution, the provision of quiet areas, team desks and collaboration spaces, for example, have been found to support social interaction, communication and control of time and space – all of which are core features of job design linked to mental health. Other features, such as open staircases, the provision of sit/stand desks and onsite gym
and wellbeing facilities, are also important as frequent exercise buffers mental ill-health.
Do you have any tips for our readers when it comes to helping themselves deal with their own mental health? Driven by our research, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, we encourage people to build their IGLOO to stay mentally healthy at work – we all need to have Individual, Group, Line manager, and Organisational resources available to us to be able to protect and maintain mental health. An employees’ IGLOO for staying mentally healthy at work might include: • Individuals’ resources – like confidence, self-care (e.g. exercise, eating well), creating structure in your workday and setting clear boundaries between work and home. • Group resources – like an open feedback culture, good relationships and informal support. • Line manager resources – like ensuring necessary equipment and technology is provided, work demands and priorities are provided, affording control over the way work is done, supporting work adjustments where needed. • Organisational resources – such as providing flexible working practices and leave policies, provision of work-focused counselling and access to EAP support and building a positive culture around mental health. We encourage people to build their own IGLOO and, where they identify gaps, try to think about how you can develop and access the resources either through training or exploring ways to change the way you work.w To find out more about Jo’s research: www.affinityhealthatwork.co.uk Transition back to the workplace: www.mentalhealthatwork.org.uk
SPOTLIGHT Mental Health
Dalia Feldheim Adjunct Professor Happiness and Resilience at Work, Founder, Flow Leadership Consultancy Dalia has a vast 20-year corporate experience, working with companies on a variety of topics from marketing, business and people development/ culture, and happiness in the workplace. Her clients include internal work for P&G and Electrolux as well as Cathay Pacific, LinkedIn and Netflix. Dalia is Founder of Flow Leadership Consultancy, an international keynote speaker, executive coach and organisational consultant.
Please tell us a little about your background and about Flow Leadership Consultancy. After spending 20 years in the corporate world at Procter and Gamble and, most recently, as CMO Asia, I decided to focus my second career on helping individuals and companies find purpose and joy at work. That’s when I founded Flow Leadership Consultancy.
What was the catalyst for your own involvement in wellbeing/mental health in the workplace? My first 17 years at P&G I was in a total state of flow. I had managers who believed in me and I loved what I was doing so much that I often lost myself in action. I remember I would tell my husband at 7pm that I am finishing soon and then suddenly it was midnight. I was in the zone and I delivered the moon. Early in my career I was in a meeting with my General Manager because one of my launches hit a wall. I was so angry and frustrated that suddenly I started to tear up. My boss, looked at me, offered me a tissue
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We had a pandemic well before COVID – it’s called the mental health pandemic. One in four experience work related deep anxiety. 85% of employees are unhappy at work
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box and then said something I will forever remember. He said, ‘Dalia don’t you ever be embarrassed for crying in the office again – it’s a sign of your passion and passion is your super power! And if you ever work for someone that doesn’t appreciate it, walk away – they don’t deserve you!’ I was so inspired – and for the next 17 years my career just went from strength-to-strength. But it wasn’t until I reached the lowest point of my career that I realised what he meant. I left P&G and became CMO of another large company. I loved the culture and the people, but two months into my role, I got a new boss – he and I were like fire and water. I was all about people and creativity. He was all about numbers and ROI – most days it felt like ROI or you die! One day I was summoned into his office. He was berating me like crazy – now I love tough love – but there was no love in this feedback. I was holding it in but then he started berating my team and that’s when I became a lioness because I know how hard they worked. A tear appeared in my eye. My boss smiled at me and offered me a box of tissues and, for a moment, I had this warm fuzzy feeling remembering my first boss. But then I noticed something almost evil in his smile – as he turned around the tissue box, I couldn’t believe my eyes – there was a sticker he had prepared in advance, which read – Dalia’s tissue box. I was shattered. I stayed for three years – but slowly he managed to get to me and I lost my spark. I was depressed and burnt out. When I left, I decided to turn my pain into purpose, and work with companies to avoid burn out.
Why do you think mental health has suddenly become the key topic when it comes to people talking about wellbeing? We had a pandemic well before COVID – it’s called the mental health pandemic. One in four experience work related deep anxiety. 85% of employees are unhappy at work – and even worse, 20% are so unhappy they are hostile. The current leadership style, that may have been right for the 80s industrial efficiencies, has failed. It’s affecting the bottom line – there’s an estimate of $7 trillion in stress related disease. COVID made it clear that command and control leaders cannot operate and it’s time for a new type of leadership – more compassionate. The good news is that empathy and compassion can be taught. We can spend a fraction of the trillions spent on disease in prevention, teaching individuals to build resilience and helping leaders develop the most important skill for the 21st century – compassion.
Is poor mental health on the rise – or is it awareness of the subject that is growing? Has the stigma once associated with mental health issues disappeared? Both. I think the stresses of modern life and the digital transformation have increased overload of information and stress – stress is not an issue per se – it is the lack of recovery. People don’t take proper vacations, don’t sleep properly and the result is chronic anxiety. Awareness is growing and
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SPOTLIGHT Mental Health
this is good, but the stigma is still here. Emotions are still seen as being soft. It is the opposite – being soft and vulnerable is the real strength!
Do you think we are heading for what some members of the press are calling a ‘mental health tsunami’? Definitely. A leader who is not spending ample time on driving their team’s mental health is not really leading. But, being the optimist that I am, and after spending the last three years studying positive psychology, I am encouraged by the fact that mental health is reversible – there are over 35 proven positive psychology interventions. People can teach themselves to be more resilient and happy. Data shows that the cost of the mental health crisis is $7 trillion and may reach £35 trillion by 2030. Spend 1% on providing resilience training to every single employee – and we can reverse this tsunami.
Do you have any tips for our readers when it comes to helping themselves deal with their own mental health? The key is: don’t suppress, express. Research by John Sarno shows stress suppressed will find a way to come out as disease. All active coping strategies are more effective than passive strategies like suppression or, worse, passive aggressiveness. Talk about it, journal it and, ideally, deal with the source of stress directly.
Do you find that the attitude towards and approach to mental health in the workplace changes radically between different countries/continents/parts of the world? I am pleased to see some markets – US/UK/ Australia – invest in increasing awareness to mental health – understanding the importance of investing in mental wellness as prevention. Having worked in Asia for the past 10 years, I find Asian cultures like Japan, China and Singapore to be more results vs people driven as
well as more stoic when it comes to expressing emotions – especially negative ones.
What should employers be doing to ensure that their people have the best possible support when it comes to their mental health? Every company must invest in resilience training – in my programmes, I have shown that as little as six two-hour sessions equip employees with simple strategies to take control of their own happiness, from focusing on one’s strengths to practicing mindfulness and gratitude. Each company should also have a Chief Happiness Officer or Chief People Office, with people dedicated to help with mental health issues. Finally, I believe positive psychology workshops, like the ones I include in my resilience training, should be part of all leadership training of young managers. They need to understand that, as they are promoted to people leaders, they no longer manage the business but manage the people who manage the business – and that is a completely different skill set, which can and must be taught!
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While a manager is not a parent, a manager can set the tone when it comes to helping people take the time to recover. Don’t send emails late at night or over weekend and help employees take REAL vacations.
Eating There is so much data on the link between food and stress. Workplaces should ensure that there is wholesome nourishing food available. Touch We have lost touch with touch, replacing a real human connection with a touchscreen. We need to keep cultural sensitivities in mind – a good handshake or tap on the back (or COVIDappropriate equivalent acknowledgement) goes a long way for building employee confidence. Recovery The first is sleep. While a manager is not a parent, a manager can set the tone when it comes to helping people take the time to recover. Don’t send emails late at night or over the weekend and help employees take REAL vacations. Movement They say ‘sitting is the new smoking’. As much as possible, managers should encourage some movement during the day, walking meetings, sports classes over lunch, standing desks and others. My first manager even got the whole office to run a marathon or half-marathon together. In today’s world, it is about managing energy, not time. A good manager knows to manage their own energy and that of their teams to ensure they ‘sharpen the saw’ and can be more resilient and effective at work.w
” How can the physical workplace help with regards to helping people cope with mental health issues? Physical state of being is a key pillar of my fivepoint resilience model. I summarise the research of the likes of Dan Butner and the blue zones in the acronym BETR ME… Breathing The workplace should encourage breaks so that you can breathe. Go and take a walk after lunch, have a green terrace etc.
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SPOTLIGHT Mental Health
Dr Craig Knight Founding Director, Identity Realization IDR is owned and headed by Craig. His background is commercial, with C-Suite experience dating back to 2000. Craig’s approach is professional, informed, attentive and thorough. Dr Knight is a global thought leader in change management and the impact of the working environment. He is widely published and has advised on television programmes investigating how leadership, design and management affect wellbeing, intelligence and productivity.
What prompted you to first become involved with mental health? Concern over people’s working conditions. When you see lower status workers being corralled into ever tighter, increasingly uniform, spaces; with decreasing amount of control, while their managers – and more qualified colleagues – receive ever better treatment, sexier spaces and attention, it makes you wonder: • What justifies this discrimination? • Are managers an advanced species? • What are the ramifications for wellbeing across all people?
Why do you think mental health has suddenly become the key topic when it comes to people talking about wellbeing? Like most things, it has been celebrity led. There is a fashion for self-disclosure rather than the old ‘stiff upper lip’. This has taken hold so that people from the heir to the throne to friends enjoying a morning coffee now feel freer than before to talk about their perceived mental wellbeing. What is cool has seen Bogart replaced by Beyonce.
Is poor mental health on the rise – or is it awareness of the subject that is growing? Has the stigma once associated with mental health issues disappeared? It is a symptom of the trend. Traits that would have been kept under wraps are now circulating currency. So yes, the stigma of, say, depression has diminished. This is excellent. However, the opportunity for self-indulgence is now irresistible for many. ‘If Taylor or Robbie has a problem,
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then I’d better have one too.’ Pre-COVID mental health – as a hypothesis – was likely better than for many generations previously, but complaints about the issues that exist were set to rocket.
Has COVID/lockdown caused an increase in poor mental health issues – or is it more that it is bringing the issue to the fore? For most, COVID conditions will cause a deterioration in mental health. This can, in part, be laid at the door of the authorities, their globally stupid phraseology and the awful term ‘Social distancing’. This is the last thing we should be doing. Physical distancing keeps us safe, but social interaction saves lives. The lack of togetherness will have detrimental effects. Few mammals are as social as homo sapiens. And for the elderly, in particular, it is social interaction that helps keeps people alive. Some people, however, are improving away from, say, shocking working conditions. Students who are routinely bullied are enjoying life under lockdown. For many, COVID is a fabulous break from the drudgery and cruelty of their social routine (but let us not forget the unfortunate few whose home life is a hell and for whom COVID must be an inescapable, living nightmare).
Are we heading for what some members of the press are calling a ‘mental health tsunami’? Given that the zeitgeist is for self-disclosure and that people are encouraged and applauded for unloading, then yes, we may well be heading for a tsunami. Consequently, many will surf the wave and seek plaudits. The problem is not the wave itself but distinguishing emotional exhibitionism from the people in genuine difficulty.
What should employers be doing to ensure that their people have the best possible support when it comes to their mental health? Treat people like grown-ups and let them come to their own decisions. There are three keys to a great job and they cost nothing beyond an emotionally developed attitude. You grant people: • Autonomy in their own workspace. • The resources they need to do their job. • Trust them to crack on with things. If you monitor staff, insist on standardised procedures, or if you interfere without invitation in somebody else’s space, you are without doubt failing; your management style is inescapably poor. The further you fall behind these requirements, the more mental health problems you are likely to inflict on your staff. This is the science; it is unopposed everywhere except in the business bubble. Please take note.
Do you have any tips for our readers when it comes to helping themselves deal with their own mental health? Yes. Remember the point on quackery (above). If it applies to company managers, it is umpteen times more important for readers. Pop stars, architects, management consultants, therapists with a diploma, nutritionists, sports people etc. are dangerously useless when it comes to tackling mental health issues. They know ***k all beyond their own biased, almost always untested experiences. If you have a problem: Step 1: Talk to those you trust, they know you best. They are usually all the help you need to come to your own conclusions. Step 2: If needed, seek qualified help. Step 3: There isn’t one.w
SPOTLIGHT Mental Health
Gary Helm Founder, obo As a passionate advocate of healthy workplaces for the body and mind, obo focuses on creating holistic workplace experiences. By collaborating with wellbeing experts, like-minded and forward thinking partners, obo is able to offer an additional level of service, to create genuine improvements in the workplace and generate sustainable benefits to all and is a proud sponsor of the Mad World Summit.
How are you today Gary? I’m good thanks. As always, I’m managing to meet with triumph and disaster, and treating both the same!
What prompted you to first become involved with mental health? A chance encounter in 2018 with the founders of Mad World. The Mad World Summit, which will be held on a virtual platform this year, has a global mission to move the conversation about workplace culture, mental health and wellbeing up a gear – accelerating the shift from stigma to solutions. I am incredibly humbled to sit on the advisory board alongside some truly remarkable people.
Why do you think mental health has suddenly become the key topic when it comes to people talking about wellbeing? I think it’s primarily down to a greater awareness and knowledge, combined with people also being a little more comfortable addressing and discussing the issue. Celebrity endorsement shouldn’t be overlooked either as a major contributor.
Is poor mental health on the rise – or is it awareness of the subject that is growing? Has the stigma once associated with mental health issues disappeared? Thankfully, awareness is certainly growing and the stigma is slowly disappearing. Sadly, disingenuous tales of mental health issues are also on the rise. For an increasing number of people, mental health, as with other conditions, is being used as an excuse/reason/social media badge of honour.
Has COVID/lockdown caused an increase in poor mental health issues – or is it more that it is bringing the issue to the fore? People’s wellbeing is under the microscope more so than ever, so it is natural that mental health issues are to the fore. For some, mental health issues will increase. However, for many others, they will reduce. The additional ‘time’ that we have been given will have allowed many of us to look at the bigger picture, and perhaps adjust our mindsets and standards. We have had more opportunity to exercise, pursue new hobbies/ activities and improve/increase our sleep. We’ve had the opportunity, but we haven’t all been able to take it, for one reason or another!
Are we heading for what some members of the press are calling a ‘mental health tsunami’?
What should employers be doing to ensure that their people have the best possible support when it comes to their mental health? Employers need to provide conditions that allow learning and freedom of expression. Wherever possible, they need to eliminate or, as a bare minimum, reduce the fear of failure, uncertainty and negative evaluations.
How can the physical workplace help with regards to helping people cope with mental health issues? Careful use of colour, textiles and materials can be important. Look and feel is often referred to, but ‘feel’ is not perhaps considered as much as it could/should be. Soothing our senses is hugely beneficial – not simply with touch, but also with taste, with smell, with hearing and with vision. We should also focus on creating ‘safe’ environments. History tells us many things, one of which is that we feel safest in environments where we can see but cannot be seen!
Do you have any tips for our readers when it comes to helping themselves deal with their own mental health? Openness, gratefulness and authenticity are key. Understanding through this time that we don’t always have somewhere to be or, just as importantly, ‘somebody’ to be has helped with rebalancing our expectations and outcomes!w
Yes, we may be. But, whilst encouraging and supporting those that are brave and open, we need to be very wary of those attention-seeking surfers.
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SPOTLIGHT Mental Health
Rob Stephenson Founder, InsideOut & CEO, Form Please tell us a little about your background and about InsideOut. Rob Stephenson is an international keynote speaker, campaigner and consultant who is on a mission to help create happier, healthier and higher performing workplaces. He experiences bipolar disorder personally. Rob is the founder of InsideOut, a social enterprise with the mission of smashing the stigma of mental ill health in the workplace by showcasing senior leader role models with lived experiences of mental ill health. This is done by virtue of a published annual list – The InsideOut LeaderBoard. Rob is also the CEO of Form, a technology start-up helping people to monitor their mental health using a score out of 10 (FormScore) with a mobile app to help friends, family and colleagues support each other. Furthermore, Rob is Cofounder of the InsideOut Awards and G24, the world’s first global 24-hour mental health summit.
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InsideOut is a social enterprise I founded almost three years ago, as a vehicle to help smash the stigma of mental ill-health in the workplace. I experience bipolar disorder and for many years I learnt to manage my condition – but did so under the radar because of a fear of how I’d be perceived by friends, by colleagues, by clients. That was the stigma of mental illness. In 2017 I saw that people were being more open about their mental health challenges – Princes William and Harry were speaking out about it, which really started to catalyse mental health on the workplace agenda. I thought, why am I hiding my psychotherapy in my diary every time to go and see my therapist, when I’ve got a team that I respect and love? I shared my story and the reaction I got back from that was overwhelmingly positive. People were not only empathising and showing support, but they were sharing their experiences back. It got me thinking about how stigmatised mental ill-health is and how many people suffer in silence – and I thought, I’m going to get involved. So, I looked around, I listened, and I spoke to anyone who’d speak to me on the scene. I kept hearing the same message; that we don’t have enough senior business leaders as role models, who are willing to open up about the challenges of mental illness. We’ve got Ruby Wax, Alastair Campbell, a few sports professionals… but we don’t have enough senior business leaders. I founded InsideOut (which is a not-forprofit) with the mission to smash the stigma by showcasing senior business leaders who are open about the fact that they have a challenge. It’s CEO’s, Partners, MD’s – people who are in a position of leadership and are prepared to say that they experience a mental health challenge. When a leader speaks out, it facilitates a change of culture. I’m now taking this concept globally, and my mission is to nomalise the conversation in the workplace. The leadership element is superimportant because it does facilitate change.
Why do you think mental health has suddenly become the key topic when it comes to people talking about wellbeing? We’ve seen a movement that has really accelerated in the past few years. Workplaces are really getting behind the mental health agenda. I think businesses have now started to understand the mental health costs that they are facing – and not just the costs of absenteeism and recruitment, but the big costs. In Deloitte’s recent analysis, £29 billion of the £49 billion costs to UK employers is due to presenteeism: people who are in work but are underperforming due to sub-optimal mental health. We’re starting to realise – particularly in this country, and we are quite forward thinking in the UK – that we need to support people who are struggling, for sure, but there’s also a great opportunity to offer education and literacy for everybody else on the wellbeing agenda. Mental health is a key part of our wellbeing. It’s on the radar, and there are a lot of great campaigners and advocates in workplaces who are behind it – the role models on the InsideOut leaderboard, for example. Many of them are doing such a great job.
Is poor mental health on the rise – or is it awareness of the subject that is growing? Lockdown is definitely causing an increase in mental health issues, and this is then translating into greater importance in society and the workplace. Lockdown is causing an increase in poor mental health because of isolation, because of increase in stress, because of general anxiety. We’re worried about the big bad world, the economic situation, our friends, our family, our children and ourselves. All of this is the perfect storm to create mental health challenges where there weren’t any before and amplify mental health challenges that do already exist in people. From a personal perspective, I’ve experienced the virus – as has my wife – and we’re in this long tail of post-COVID sufferers (and there are
SPOTLIGHT Mental Health
thousands of us out there) where the symptoms keep coming back; the fatigue, the lethargy, the shortness of breath as it attacks the autoimmune system. This has really affected my own mental health, primarily because I struggle to get out and exercise and ride my bike – which is one of the main ways in which I manage my bipolar disorder and stay well. We’ve seen stats from the ONS saying that depression has doubled during lockdown – and that’s absolutely no surprise at all. It is also bringing it to the forefront – because more and more people will experience a mental health challenge as a result of the pandemic. One of my favourite quotes on this issue is that 100% of us will know what it is like to struggle with our mental wellbeing as a result of the pandemic. That’s a negative, for sure, but I also think in the longer term it will increase empathy and that we can turn it into a positive. I’m an optimist, so I hope to see that.
Has the stigma once associated with mental health issues disappeared? I think the stigma is getting eradicated in the UK. People are feeling more comfortable talking about their mental health challenges. That means that we are seeing an increase in the reporting of people being out of the workplace because of a mental health challenge – which is good, we want to see that, we want to open up that can of worms. We want to know that people are off work for depression or anxiety or PTSD – not people faking a back condition because they feel uncomfortable or fearful talking about it. I think that breaking down of stigma over time is helping us identify the issues more correctly. However, I do think there are more general levels of mental health challenges because of the way we’re all living – and the pandemic has amplified that.
Has COVID/lockdown causing an increase in poor mental health issues – or is it more that it is bringing the issue to the fore? The press likes to sensationalise it, but I think we are going to see significant mental health challenges at a population level as we travel through this pandemic – we’re seeing it already with the reporting of the doubling of depression. I feel there is a real danger that we’re going to see an epidemic of burnout. The pandemic has meant we’ve been sprinting to adapt, but
we’ve stayed sprinting for almost six months and we’re only now starting to realise that this is a marathon. We’re only having little breaks during the day, we’re not taking holidays, we don’t have a natural buffer between home and work – and we’re also fearful for our positions. We might feel the need to be online much more and to work harder. All of this is creating conditions for an epidemic of burnout. Employers need to be really mindful of this and offer support. Individuals need to just think about prioritising their metal health and their wellbeing to address that.
What should employers be doing to ensure that their people have the best possible support when it comes to their mental health? There are three elements to an integrated strategy: 1. Awareness: letting people know that it’s okay to talk about your metal health, that it’s okay to seek support when you’re struggling and providing some literacy around how to proactively manage your wellbeing. 2. Having support in the workplace: EAP schemes, in-house therapy, peer support groups and technology solutions that employees can tap into. 3. Preventional promotion: providing education, resources and a culture that allows people to proactively manage their mental wellbeing, to stay well, or to move toward the thriving end of the continuum. Right now, I think it’s really important to check-in with your employees – ask people to manage their mental health with a score out of 10. We need to find ways to reach into our employee base and find out how they are doing, and a FormScore – a number out of 10 – is a really easy way to do that. Then we need to be helping to facilitate social connections – this is the one thing we’re really missing from the workplace. I think the message here is that mental health applies to everyone – wellbeing applies to everyone – and workplace design and culture has a huge impact on our mental wellbeing. It’s about creating cultures that allow people to feel safe in asking for support – and that’s about having the right level of resource to deliver that support. EAP schemes are good, in isolation, but they’re not going to help everybody. Mental Health First Aid is a good awareness-raising tool, but again it’s not going to help everybody. We need a bunch of different
elements to give the support and the prevention strategy for that to happen.
How can the physical workplace help with regards to helping people cope with mental health issues? As we redefine the physical workplace, I think that the physical workplace will be a place that we go to connect with colleagues, where we go because something purposeful or magnificent is happening – not just because that’s where we go to do the day job or because it’s 8.30am on a Monday. What we’re lacking now is the social connection bit. The physical workplace is often a place where we can get that. It’s often a place where we get that collaboration and real sense of purpose. The physical workplace is, for many, many people, a big part of what keeps people well, which is why we’ve seen a rise in depression and anxiety when people have been locked out of the workplace. For many others, it is a source of stress and the commute isn’t great, so I think bringing flexibility into the workplace is going to be important – but I do think that the physical workplace is absolutely essential for human connection.
Do you have any tips for our readers when it comes to helping themselves deal with their own mental health? Absolutely – this is square in the centre of what I do and very much at the core of the FormScore project. My first tip – and this is for anybody, not just people who are struggling – is to understand that we all have mental health. It’s one of the most beautiful things about being human – and if we accept that, we can then accept that we can influence it. Taking the gift of a moment of self-reflection each day – asking yourself how you are today as far as your mental health is concerned – is a beautiful thing to do because that is the time when we notice what is going on – have I slept well? Has my exercise been good? Am I balancing my nutrition well? How am I getting those moments of recovery to offset the stress that life throws at us? These simple prompts can help us to tweak what we’re doing. It might be as simple as taking a break in the day or prioritising sleep a little more or reaching out and connecting with a friend. We need to bring this literacy and this awareness to what we’re all about – and the FormScore is all about that.w
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WORK
50 Case Study: Muckle LLP from Simon Grundy Commercial Interior Design 58 Case Study: Sprints Capital from The DSGN Studio 66 David Thame: Back to work?
Time for change Immediately prior to lockdown, we had a trip to one of our favourite cities – Newcastle – all planned. The virus put a stop to all that, of course. What it has not stopped, however, is the resolve of forward-thinking, innovative, agile businesses.
uckle LLP is a leading commercial law firm with a national reputation, based in Newcastle, and as much as we’d loved to have visited the space, we have to settle for a virtual tour of a new scheme that has helped enable the firm, its people and its clients to function, despite the unique circumstances we all find ourselves in. Designers Simon Grundy Commercial Interior Design host our virtual tour. The firm was previously based in the same building – Time Central, in the city’s Gallowgate – with open plan offices, employees and facilities, split over two floors. As the business had grown, desks had taken over some of the breakout areas. ‘The company decided to stay in the same building – and brought people together on one floor,’ Simon Grundy tells us. ‘Muckle recognises the importance of design in contributing to staff wellbeing and business growth, and we have worked with them over many years to create environments to meet changing business needs.’ The redesign of the office, completed at the end of 2019, was part of a move to advance the flexible working initiative that Muckle began in 2017 with the introduction of their agile working policy, which the firm says has given people more flexibility, more control of their lives and the freedom to be themselves and work as they work best.
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‘The policy has had a really positive impact on employee engagement, client service and productivity,’ said Jason Wainwright, Muckle LLP’s Managing Partner. ‘Having found that agile working was visibly helping our people and the business to thrive, last year we decided to update the office to fully support our people’s ability to work flexibly and boost service efficiency, connectivity and growth. We now have a smart, open plan and flexible office for the entire workforce. ‘Of course, as a result of the impact of coronavirus, all our people have been working from home recently – but our agile office, along with the remote working technology we have invested in over the last three years, had significantly enhanced our ability to work flexibly well before the crisis hit. ‘It meant that rapidly transitioning everyone to working from their own homes at the beginning of the COVID-19 lockdown (both physically and psychologically) was a relatively straightforward and seamless process, and we have continued to serve our clients without interruption as a result. ‘While eager to get back to normal, we are under no immediate pressure to return people to the office. When the time comes however, our flexible workspace allows us to move people back onsite
Variety of both formal an informal workspaces
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CASE STUDY Muckle LLP
safely, with space to allow for social distancing and other health and safety measures as required.’ We ask about the timelines for this forward-thinking project. ‘We were brought on board in September 2018, which meant we had a year in dialogue before fitout began,’ Simon recalls. ‘This length of time is unusual, but valuable for understanding what is going to make a project really successful for the client. ‘In February 2019 we carried out an occupancy analysis, when we spent two weeks in the office monitoring every hour to see how the existing space was being used. The fit-out was scheduled over four months, starting in September, with completion in December 2019. ‘We have a longstanding relationship with the client and they always bring us in at an early stage to discuss what they have in mind. ‘The brief for the new office was based on feedback from over 150 Muckle employees and the occupancy analysis. The company carried out specially structured workshops and consultations in April 2019 to find out how people wanted to work and what was important to them about their work.
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When the time comes however, our f lexible workspace allows us to move people back onsite safely and conveniently, with space to allow for social distancing and other health and safety measures as required
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top Bright and colourful interior finishes above Open and private work settings
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CASE STUDY Muckle LLP
‘Through the occupancy analysis we had found that the maximum space occupancy was 80%, meeting rooms would be booked and then not used, and the staff kitchen on the floor beneath the main office was also not being well used.’ Simon tells us that Muckle’s people were involved in the design process early on, and the team continued to share the design with them as it developed. ‘As part of the final design presentation we used a virtual reality walkthrough – created by In Architecture – which very effectively communicated our plans, and we had unanimous sign-off from all the partners. ‘Combining the feedback from employees and the monitoring of the spaces, the new office environment takes into account the needs of
different generations and different types of work. ‘The concept was based on the idea of a ‘home from home’ – before coronavirus brought homeworking to the fore. The new office is not a typical workspace but an environment that brings together the best elements of office and home working. ‘Originally designed with 180 possible work settings on one floor, including 120 desks arranged in team ‘neighbourhoods’, these can be easily rearranged if needed to support social distancing requirements as people return to the office. ‘There are two large collaboration areas, which can also be used for individual workspace as well as private meeting rooms. Pods, quiet zones, large project and
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CASE STUDY Muckle LLP
A variety of materials are used to divide floorplates
Client Muckle LLP Interior Designer Simon Grundy Commercial Interior Design Contractor/Joinery Graeme Ash Furniture Albany Contract Furniture, Orangebox Surfaces Camira Flooring Tarkett, Desso
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breakout spaces and colourful lounge areas cater for a variety of needs while also creating multiple opportunities for cross-functional collaboration. ‘The café area – a new galley kitchen surrounded by banquettes with power and USBs – is housed in the centre of the office floor, making it much easier for people to access and take time out away from desks.’ A popular and well-used space prior to lockdown, the kitchen has doors so it can be separated from the rest of the office. It has the same facilities as the Muckle client business lounge kitchen, including top of the range coffee and ice and water machines. Breakfast cereals and fruit are also available here every day. As more people choose to cycle to work or combine other exercise with their day, the changing and ‘spa quality’ shower facilities have hairdryers, a cabinet dryer for clothes and plenty of coat and bag storage, while everyone has their own locker and caddy for office equipment. ‘The main challenge was finding the balance between creating a social environment that encourages collaboration and connectivity, and one that allows for quiet reflection, focus and privacy, which are essential for many aspects of legal work,’ Simon reveals.
‘We have achieved a lot within the budget. We did very little structural work, also with sustainability in mind. We have reused the existing document storage, which will gradually be needed less and less as work is now paperless. ‘We selected coloured fabrics, oak and light coloured laminates to create that all-important softer, less corporate feel. ‘As part of the agile concept, a high proportion – around 70% – of the furniture can be moved. Consideration of the acoustics of the space means that 40% of the floorspace is taken up by furniture with soft fabric surfaces to absorb sound. The new office also enhances Muckle LLP’s extensive use of technology, with video call enabled meeting rooms and interactive screens throughout, making it easier for its people and clients to stay connected on the go. ‘In the office we’re using cutting edge technology to help us work as it suits us and our clients best, whether that’s at a conventional desk, a quiet isolated pod, a large collaborative table with Skype enabled AV or on a comfy sofa with inspirational views of Newcastle city centre,’ Jason says.
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CASE STUDY Muckle LLP
‘A huge amount of planning and preparation went into the project and Simon and his team have been fantastic to work with,’ says Debbie McCormack, Director of Operations at Muckle, who was responsible for delivering the project. ‘His industry expertise, creative ideas, understanding of our business and meticulous attention to detail have been key to delivering this complex transformation. The feedback from our people has been overwhelmingly positive and I’m sure it will help us to continue to grow, develop and innovate for years to come.’ Muckle is an excellent example of a forwardthinking business that cares about its people and clients. All employees were asked their opinion about how they wanted to work and what was important to them about work, and this has informed the design. ‘From the consultation we knew we could push the ‘home from home’ aesthetic and incorporate Muckle’s colourful brand quite naturally. The project
is a true reflection of the entire organisation right the way through – in the way it looks, feels and functions. ‘Agility and wellbeing are at the heart of the concept,’ Simon tells us. ‘It [the office space] created a real buzz and our people have thrived without fixed desks, silos or set office rules prior to lockdown and I am sure they will continue to do so when office life eventually returns to normality,’ Jason continues. ‘Ultimately, it helps us deliver an increasingly agile, personal and efficient service for clients and a positive workplace for the benefit of our people’s wellbeing.’ We conclude by asking Simon about his own personal favourite element of the space. ‘My favourite element is the central kitchen space. It encapsulates the agile ethos, offering somewhere to work, meet, and feel at home. ‘The first time I visited after everyone had moved in, people stopped me to say how much they enjoyed working in the new space – which was fantastic.’w
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The feedback from our people has been overwhelmingly positive and I’m sure it will help us to continue to grow, develop and innovate for years to come
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Muckle staff can comfortably be socially distant
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CASE STUDY Sprints Capital
Capital idea It’s been a long, long time since we were last in London’s famous West End. It’s been a long, long time since we last actually visited a new project, for that matter. Well, today we’re putting both of those to rights.
above Elegant and serene open client space left Meeting rooms feature herringbone flooring and muted tones
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They really liked the fact that everything was elegant, clean and calm – and nothing was too overwhelming
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e’re in London to take a look at the new Sprints Capital headquarters and, with mask discarded and hands sanitised, we wonder what we might find once we reach our destination. Perspex screens? Washing stations? Yellow and black chevrons? Warning signs? Actually, what we find is none of the above. Sprints Capital is an advisor that invests in technology-enabled growth companies with proven business models, strong and durable market positions and excellent teams. Over the last two decades the team behind Sprints Capital has invested over €2bn in promising European internet businesses, many of which have grown to become global champions. The new Sprints Capital space lies on Duke of York Street, just off Jermyn Street. We meet with the scheme’s designer and Co-owner of The DSGN Studio, Ben Dudley , who social distantly guides us up to the Sprints Capital space, where we’re, in Ben’s own words, instantly saturated into the world of Sprints. Unlike the more corporate, somewhat typical (albeit high standard) landlord interior we found in the lobby, the Sprints Capital environment plays with the senses, immediately taking us along a dark, cool (it’s 30 degrees outside, so this is cool in both senses of the word), art-lined gallery space,
before we emerge into the bright, brilliance of the relaxed and refined client lounge. Taking a seat (in beautiful Scandinavian upholstery), we ask Ben about the origins of the project and his relationship with Sprints Capital. ‘We started this project just as lockdown was happening,’ Ben recalls. ‘We didn’t have any problem with our supply chain, thankfully. To start with, we were asked to play around with the existing structure – and then to design something completely different; a space which would work with the advantages of the architecture of the building. ‘So we developed two schemes – one using the majority of the existing structure that was already in place here, and one featuring the idea of having a ‘tunnel’ leading into the main client space. It quickly became apparent that the second design was a much more effective, elegant solution. ‘We were in competition, as we generally are with our projects, and following the initial discussions and having seen our first draft design concepts, I believe the client felt they would get a far greater level of creativity from us. ‘We asked the client what they liked and what they didn’t like – and they came back to us and said, ‘You’re the designers – we want you to come up with a solution’. The one thing they did say was that
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CASE STUDY Sprints Capital
they wanted a home away from home, referencing the fabulous Ett Hem Hotel in Stockholm. We were shown a single image of an interior and were told that the brief was high-end, but not luxurious. ‘The company was originally just across the street from here. They wanted to stay in this area; it’s not ostentatious, but it does have an air of class about it. It’s very well connected to a number of underground and mainline stations. ‘The idea is that you walk into the space and instantly think, ‘Okay, this is a bit different!’ You walk the route, past the artwork – and they are really into their art – and into this beautiful, open space. The ceiling in the entrance space is comprised of Brooklyn tin tiles, which we brought in from the States. ‘It’s a natural and comfortable feeling when you walk into this open area. We’ve added simple, yet interesting lighting elements. We started by creating a series of mood boards for the client, showing different colours, tones and textures – and then developed that into a final scheme that featured warm metals, with blacks and neutral hues and tones. I think they liked the fact that
above Meeting rooms sit either side of client space right Client drinks station features elegant lighting
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‘We specified materials and furniture that we feel captured the client – that is a tangible manifestation of this client
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CASE STUDY Sprints Capital
Kitchen space doubles as extra workspace
everything was elegant, clean, calm and came together well – nothing was too overwhelming. They wanted a space where their clients could feel relaxed and be well looked after. They can sit here and have drinks before heading into one of the meeting rooms. ‘We specified materials and furniture that captured the spirit of the client – a tangible manifestation of the businesses direction. Some of the seating elements are Scandinavian – as is some of the lighting – but the rest just has that whole ethos of Sprints about it; that simplicity, that elegance, that brightness. We wanted them to add beautiful decoration to the space as well as functionality. The great thing is, when you’re out on the street and you look up, you can see sculptural elements – you can see that something really interesting is happening here. ‘We used brass within the lighting elements and wooden, herringbone flooring, and then applied simple greys for the finishes. The clients love of books has always been made evident to us, so we have incorporated bookcases throughout, the books also add colour to the overall scheme. Every time a client comes here, they give them a book. ‘The technology here has to work really hard – as does the furniture. They’re very tech savvy people.
‘The hardest thing when it came to the specification of products was that we had to go through a massive range of options and then get samples in – and this was all done, like I said earlier, in pretty exceptional circumstances. We used the majority of the client’s budget in the most important spaces – the client-facing areas, essentially. ‘When you walk through the space, you’re drawn towards the sculptural elements. We wanted to create a space that was slightly different, had great lines to it and was really cohesive.’ There are two large meeting rooms to either side of the client suite, with all three spaces featuring large-scale windows, allowing brilliant natural light into the space, as well as offering fantastic views out on to the beautiful church on Jermyn Street. ‘There was a desire for a private space where one could get away from everything – a space for quality thinking,’ Ben points out. ‘So we’ve added this darker, calming space that the team can escape to. It’s intentionally simple – there are no screens and no fixed technology. It has very low lighting levels – again intentionally. ‘We created different settings throughout the space. The workspace itself has height adjustable desks throughout – and the door
Client Sprints Capital, London Interior Designer The DSGN Studio Furniture & Lighting Techo, Deltalight, Purves & Purves Joinery Empire Interior Contractors Flooring Modulyss, Havwoods, Clarks Contract Rugs Moooi Partitions, Ceilings & Doors Generation 3
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CASE STUDY Sprints Capital
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‘When you walk through the space, you’re drawn towards the sculptural elements. We wanted to create a space that was slightly different, had great lines to it and was really cohesive.’
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to the workspace can be closed, so that when clients come in here, they don’t even take notice of that area. They can be brought straight into the heart of the space and then through to one of the meeting rooms. So, essentially, we flipped the scheme on its head by putting the workstation area adjacent to the entrance, then sealing that off, as it were, and then put the meeting rooms to the far end, with this nice open space, which helps create this dynamic line – the design draws people through the space and the clients get the benefit of the natural light and the views. ‘The kitchen is, again, hidden away from clients. This can be used to service the meetings rooms and is also used by the team here. Again, it was quite important that this was tucked away.’ Like we said earlier, we weren’t sure what to expect from today’s visit. What we’ve found is a scheme that possesses all the qualities that Sprints Capital was looking for. This is an elegant, quietly confident, refined solution – with not a Perspex screen nor chevron in sight. In fact, there’s not even a corporate colour or Sprints Capital logo to be seen. Now that is cool confidence. Boy, it’s good to be back!w
top Meeting room offers great views onto Jermyn Street below above Full bookshelves add colour to the scheme
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Back to work We’ve all been there. Microsoft Teams is live, everyone is studying everyone else’s spare bedroom wallpaper and making anxious small talk whilst waiting for the final participant to dial in. David Thame has rearranged his home library and is good to go – virtually.
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everal minutes later James Frankis, Director of Workplace Product for premium US-based coworking business, Convene, appears online. He’s working from the West Country in a ‘not-spot’ so deprived even a text won’t send. In a way, the rocky start to his chat with Mix makes the point beautifully: working from home has its limits, and any business that depends on home working quickly runs into them. James, whose high-end vision of coworking opens in the UK soon, with two large City of London bases
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(70,000 sq ft at 80 Fenchurch Street and 100,000 sq ft at 22 Bishopsgate) thinks that the limitations of homeworking, combined with a clear brand offer and some short-term fixes, will help his version of shared workspace survive. And survival is an issue. WeWork, the motherand-father of funky coworking, has seen its business crunched by a combination of coronavirus and its own excessive hubris. WeWork is burning through cash at the rate of more than $500 million a quarter as its cautious coworkers stay away from the office.
WORKPLACE Property
left & below Headspace Group (part of BE Offices)
IWG, better known as Regus, also made an operating loss and expects a tough year. So how will the serviced sector’s business model survive post-COVID-19? Trapped between their own landlords (with whom they have signed inflexible long-term leases at fixed prices) and their tenants (buying on short-term, very flexible deals at variable prices) they face a challenge. That so much serviced space depends on high density crowded floorplates makes them particularly unappealing in an era of infection control. Two of the leading thinkers in the sector – one running a white label serviced floorspace business focused on the big corporates, the other a new entrant with a premium product – provide some light amidst the shared workspace darkness. Covene’s James Frankis and BE Group’s Jonathan Weinbrenn can show the way. Jonathan runs the BE Group bespoke white label service office space operation, providing floorspace for corporates who brand it as their own. He says the lessons of the pandemic are easy to point to, but difficult to learn. ‘We know, for instance, that cheaply-built, stack-them-high office fit-outs open operators and occupiers up to all kinds of risks. Not just health and infection control, but complaints about sound, privacy, fresh air, and so on. What we need to do is create vibrant spaces that answer those needs and can control virus movement but that aren’t, at the
same time, regimented. You want a workplace where people can be stimulated but can also feel safe.’ Jonathan admits there is a danger that operators’ (and their designers) gold-plate infection control standards get to the point where work life becomes intolerable. And he agrees that the craving for human contact, for lightness and joy, cannot be banished from a safe workplace. The big challenge is to find a way for serviced workspace to feel trusted. ‘Our clients have lots of choices. They could do what we do themselves, if they wanted. So we need to show they can trust us to get it right on service guarantees and risk assessments,’ he says. Their white space business has barely lost a client since the coronavirus lockdown in March but, plainly, some contracts will not be renewed. Occupancy is down 8% on pre-pandemic levels. Safe to say WeWork would kill for that vacancy rate. ‘The serviced office occupiers who have suffered did so because they were not prudent. They obsessed about market share, signing bad deals in buildings that won’t work for them. But if you understand profit and loss, and hospitality and property, operators can thrive,’ he says. Convene’s James Frankis is thinking hard about the world of workspace that will emerge, medium-term, once the virus is under control. ‘We’re betting there will be a return to work, which is different from what we’ve seen before, in which everyone now working from home returns to the
WORKPLACE Property
The bar at Convene’s new space at 22 Bishopgate
office, but in which most people work from home a few days a week fairly regularly,’ he explains. James is working on a series of app-based innovations, which will help bridge the cultural divide between workplace and home office. The business is also finding ways to reopen live events (business meetings, training, conferences) but allow remote participation. But they are also thinking keenly about the physical experience of being at work. ‘The office was the great leveller,’ says James. ‘Everyone, from the most senior person to the most junior intern, shared the same kind of desk, the same air conditioning, it was a very democratic space in a way that working from home is not. ‘If our customers are coming into the office three days a week, then the office becomes much more of a place to meet and collaborate. We think desk densities will
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go down, and we’ll see more collaboration space – large tables, white boards and so on. Serviced offices won’t be about a lot of desks, they will become some much more diverse, and smarter.’ This poses a financial challenge. With up to 50% of workstations gone to allow for social distancing, and occupiers removing desks and inserting comfy chairs, how does per workstation pricing function? How can operators like Convene make this pay? The immediate answer is to stop charging per workshare and start charging per suite, allowing the occupier to decide how densely desked this space becomes. The cleverer, riskier answer is to hope that everyone needs more suites. ‘We’re not taking this lightly. Yes, this is a difficult time for the office market. But post-COVID-19 we think there will be increased demand for flexible office
floorspace – that’s what we’ve already seen in the Asian markets, as they return to work. In the short-term, we will see a boom in the flexible market. Rather than us suffering, the sufferers will be traditional landlords trying to shift 15-year leases.’ The conclusion both James and Jonathan draw is that the surge in coworking and serviced workspace we saw before coronavirus will, after a few months of stumbling, find its feet once again. Not only will operators recover their mojo, but traditional landlords will form partnerships with serviced office operators and convert existing mainstream floorspace for flexible use. Don’t give up on serviced floorspace, don’t give up on the idea that buying floorspace wholesale and selling it retail can be a paying proposition. The best, they agree, is yet to come.w
HOSPITALITY
70 Case Study: Bermonds Locke from Holloway Li 76 Dylan Wills, HBA: Post-Pandemic Hospitality
Locke stock This month, interior architects Holloway Li unveil their design for Locke’s latest offering, Bermonds Locke – a sustainable urban retreat in the heart of Bermondsey. Brought to life with repurposed materials, the studio’s design has transformed the hotel into a ‘surreal, golden-hued haven’ inspired by California’s iconic Joshua tree and Mojave Desert.
above The reception, immersed in a glittering inverted mirage created by overhead mirrors left Courtyard photos: ed dabney
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he desert-inspired aesthetic begins with a moonlit reception, immersed in a glittering inverted mirage created by overhead mirrors – inspired by Olaf Eliason’s Sun installation. ‘The effect feels really magic,’ says Alex Holloway, Creative Director at Holloway Li. ‘Our inspiration was rooted in California’s Joshua Tree and Mojave Desert, drawing on the psychedelic experience and setting out to transform the 143-room space into a surreal, golden-hued haven.’ Marking a new design direction for hotel-meetshome brand Locke, Holloway Li has curated a living experience carved out of recycled construction site materials that will feature across the studio rooms, bar and restaurant, coworking spaces, gym and yoga room. The studio harnessed the potential of upcycling to curate bespoke furniture and interiors throughout the space, with swing chairs, fixed concrete
banquette seating and suspended planters separating the space between bar and restaurant. ‘The furniture choices were essential to the scheme – from the iridescent rainbow surfaces to the imperfection of textured concrete, designed to recreate the desert’s tonality,’ says Alex. ‘All our choices were garnered toward unifying the sunset drenched, desert aesthetic.’ Bringing the changing gradient of the desert sunset to south London, Locke’s signature functional living rooms on the upper floors are dipped in blue, beige and grey hues, with saturated vibrant reds on the lower floors. The studio has designed bespoke modular sofas, handmade using sand mixed with resin lay-up to recreate the desert’s tonality, complemented by rough-sawn timber flooring. Concrete destined for landfill serves as plinths for a six-metre long terrazzo table in the ground floor
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HOSPITALITY Bermonds Locke
workspace, shaped into a bar frontage that will serve beer from Bermondsey’s Beer Mile. Repurposed steel rebar and clay bricks form decorative ironwork and joinery elements throughout the space. ‘A circular material economy was central to the design process, harnessing upcycling potential to create bespoke furniture and interiors throughout the space – as an example, we recycled concrete strength-testing cubes to create impactful table plinths in the coworking area, and the bar front in the restaurant, referencing rocky desert outcrops,’ says Alex. ‘We love the humble story of these waste elements, each cube having a unique sand/cement mix, numbered and dated with distinctive handwriting.’ What makes this space unique is the play on unexpected materials and colours. ‘Material innovation extends throughout all elements of the space, beyond the upcycled waste materials,’ Alex explains. ‘Look to the bar
above Guest Suite, equipped with a fully functional kitchen and laundry facilities left The bar featuring panels treated with zinc-passivation photos: ed dabney
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Material innovation extends throughout all elements of the space, beyond the upcycled waste material
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HOSPITALITY Bermonds Locke
A typical bedroom
photo: nicholas worley
tops, wall panelling and sliding partitions in the bedrooms, where an industrial process of zinc-passivation creates an iridescent rainbow finish – again mirroring the desert motif.’ This metal-dipping process forms a patina over the metal, embedding the desert sky into the hotel’s scheme. ‘The budget was extremely tight, so we had to be really imaginative with how we created interesting moments within this frame,’ the team tells us. ‘The hotel floor plan was also highly unconventional and didn’t naturally lend itself to the typical floorplan of a hotel, which would often have a lot of vertical and horizontal repetition. Consider also, a typical hotel has eight different room types, repeated throughout the hotel. Bermonds has 143 room types and 53 different unique types within that 143, engendering a huge game of Tetris to try and fit them all in!’ Designed to be lived in, each individual studio is equipped with a fully functional kitchen and laundry facilities, giving guests the flexibility to live in each room undisturbed for anything from one night to three months. Textured concrete walls separate bedrooms from the
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Client Locke Architect & Interior Designer Holloway Li Furniture Monologue, Polkima Surfaces Toulemonde Bochart, Aydin Other Vitra, Lusso Stone, Artiq
kitchen and living areas, with bedframes created from blackened rebar and accented with linen canopies. Low cost, low-impact, considered design at its best. Bermonds Locke is the first of a series of collaborative projects that will see Holloway Li and Locke join creative forces. This latest project is the realisation of the studio’s experimentation with a circular material economy, creating a unique aesthetic as well as revealing low-cost, sustainable practices that speak to the future of design.w
HOSPITALITY Bermonds Locke
Ground floor restaurant
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Post-pandemic hospitality Mix sits down with Dylan Wills, Associate at leading global firm, Hirsch-Bedner Associates, specialists in creating beautiful hospitality spaces for clients from New York to Shanghai. Here, Dylan sheds a practical light on how hotels and restaurants can manage the inevitable changes that the industry is facing.
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s the hard-hit hospitality industry prepares to reopen under new government regulations, there is the necessity to rethink existing spaces. Social distancing is still a major issue and will seriously affect the very essence of hotels, restaurants and bars – perhaps indefinitely. How can designers adapt to these new rules and create impactful and effective spaces for the post-pandemic landscape?
What will become the most important design consideration for a postCOVID-19 hospitality world – and how will this be reflected in the aesthetic experience? In the short term, I don’t think there’s going to be a drastic difference within hotel designs and new builds. The main reason being that most
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of the world’s hospitality companies have been closed down for at least three months. They’ve had zero revenue, and their annual figures for this year are going to be down. If you were an owner of a hotel, not having revenue for three months, would you want to invest large amounts of money to get your hotel open again? Of course, but you will see adaptability and flexibility – hotel operators now know that they need to be ready for anything that happens in the future. The one thing you can do is use larger spaces differently. You can use things like furniture items and decorative items to create architectural barriers, allowing people to flow around the objects. In a lobby, for instance, we can put furniture or pieces of art that make people circulate one direction or another but still enhance the look of the space.
HOSPITALITY Interview
In terms of the surrounding lobby, over the last two years or so we have been looking at these semi-private areas – what I like to call personal bubbles – where small groups of people can sit and chat and interact. The great thing about them is you can sit in a small group but you’re still soaking up the overall social atmosphere of the public area that you’re in. The difficulty now, of course, is that we’re limited to the number of people who can sit in these areas. Whenever anybody leaves an area, somebody has to come in and clean it effectively. Cleaning up semi-private spaces for six people can take up to 10/15 minutes. Is it practical? I’m really not too sure. Right now, there is one simple word that everybody is paying attention to – and that’s cleanliness. Everybody is very socially aware of hygiene and clean areas. We’ve all been hit really unaware by COVID-19 and it has brought to light the fragility of who we are as people. I think going forward in new build designs and new hotels we’re really going to be focused on the materials we use, and how they can be maintained. We’ll focus on social interaction – influenced by watching how people are interacting with current spaces and social activity. I think if hospitality in general – bars, restaurants, hotels – were prepared to be able to social distance with a few flexible changes, then I don’t think we would have had to shut down to the extent we did earlier in the year. I think they’re really looking at how they can be flexible in the future to cope with things like this.
Do you think shared spaces within hotels (coworking spaces etc) will become a thing of the past, or do you think there will be a bigger appetite for versatile spaces, with more people working flexibly? Over the last few years, these spaces have been designed with the word community in mind. You have these long communal tables that can accommodate 12 people working at the same time. They might not know each other, but you’ve got this feeling of hustle and bustle and community. Going forward into a post-COVID-19 world, that’s not going to
be practical anymore. It would be a practical solution to try and involve that communal feeling but have smaller pod environments. I think that’s a more realistic option. In 2018 I was working on a concept for flexible meeting spaces for a very large hotel operator, and we were looking at seating areas for six people – with a screen, Wi-Fi and QR codes on the tables and pods so that you can order food and drink from your phone. You can actually include UV lighting so that you don’t have to clean them every time someone leaves. It’s amazing that a 5ft-tall screen can give a person that feeling of security even though the air around them is still the same air that everybody’s breathing. I think that could really suit the world we are in now.
The post-COVID-19 commercial interiors world– hospitality, workplace, residential – will focus on strengthening the connection between the physical environment and wellbeing more than ever before – how do you think this will be reflected in design? I think it very much depends on how you categorise that word wellbeing. It’s a bit like that other word, lifestyle. Everybody says, ‘Have you seen that new lifestyle hotel?’ But when you go to the hotel you think, number one: is it lifestyle? And secondly: what actually is lifestyle? It’s the same with wellbeing. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, I think the term wellbeing has broadened in its definition and will have more significance. I think hotels will have a focus on wellbeing in terms of cleanliness. You could look at things such as UV lights in wardrobes in hotels, so that when your clothes are hung up on arrival, and you shut the door, a UV light comes on that disinfects your clothes. I was part of a seminar last week where one company was talking about a UV product that they’re looking at for hotel rooms. The question is, is it operationally and cost effective? The process for the UV disinfecting takes two hours – and when you look at your average international hotel, the turnaround for cleaning a room is usually 35/45
minutes. Two hours is just not operationally viable. Some of the larger operators have looked at what I would call a smoke bomb – it takes 15 minutes to smoke the room, there’s no smell and the room is totally disinfected. I think that’s more cost-effective at the moment. Again, looking at wellbeing and health – in terms of gyms – there may be a shift towards moving fitness into the hotel rooms. There is one hotel brand in particular that actually has gym equipment in the bedroom. When you walk into the room, the first TV channels are all fitness videos, so you don’t have to go down to the gym in the hotel and can avoid social interactions.
Is there a danger that sustainability efforts will be discarded in the struggle to make spaces safe and suitable for people to return? The difficulty that we have at the moment of course is that sustainability tends to cost more. If we really want to look at sustainability for the future, we need to look at ways to cut costs so that it’s more financially viable for somebody to look at sustainability. 10/12 years ago, when LED lighting was really coming to the mainstream, it was virtually impossible to try and persuade hotel owners to buy LED bulbs for the whole hotel because they were 20% more expensive than normal bulbs. I think people have become more educated now. They’re understanding that, for example, things like LED lightbulbs use less electricity – therefore we’re using less power, therefore we have less carbon. Same with materials too. They’re really understanding that producing materials in different ways is saving our planet. But are they willing to pay the extra costs? I think two things have happened during COVID-19. The first one is we’ve walked outside of our homes and heard less cars, instead tuned into the birdsong. We’ve enjoyed clear skies and amazing views that we haven’t seen in our generation. I think that gives a heightened awareness around how we really need to look at saving our planet effectively. Will that influence people into more sustainable design? All I can say is that I hope so. I hope we can drive this forward. At the moment it comes down to financial costs and people’s commitment.w
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LIVING
80 Case Study: Chapter Living from Tigg + Coll 87 Michael Howard, urbanbubble: Future-proofing BTR in the face of COVID-19
LIVING Chapter Living
A new chapter Tigg+Coll Architects has overhauled the main entrance and amenity spaces at Chapter Spitalfields student accommodation, creating a beautifully textured and detailed space with plenty of options for socialising and studying.
igg+Coll has been tasked with the rethinking and reimagining of several spaces across London for the Greystar student brand, Chapter. The most notable of these being the large refurbishment at the Kings Cross site in 2016. For this latest project in Spitalfields, the team has extended the existing entrance lobby, creating a separate commercial space and entrance foyer to the student amenity space. Tigg+Coll worked closely with Greystar to ensure that the interior scheme reflected the company brand and ethos; rather than feeling like student accommodation, the interiors were designed to feel more like a high-end boutique hotel, creating inviting living spaces that residents would be proud to call home.
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The existing interiors within the space were looking tired and dark, with an uninviting entrance and unclear wayfinding. Tigg+Coll added a fresh and contemporary palette of materials and colours to the interiors, giving an increased sense of arrival into the building. ‘The reception was moved into the main entrance, to provide increased surveillance but, rather than a formal reception desk, it was designed as an elegant piece of joinery that is a focal point within the space – with a marble-effect worktop, stained ribbed timber cladding and bronze detailing,’ says Helen Sutton, Associate Architect at Tigg+Coll. ‘This also makes the relationship between staff and students more open and formal, with additional glazed meeting rooms available for both staff and student use.
Communal area photos by david butler
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LIVING Chapter Living
above Glazed meeting room for staff and students opposite Double height entrance and reception
Client Greystar Architect & Interior Designer Tigg+Coll Architects Furniture Conran Contracts Flooring Solus Tiles, Amtico Surfaces Corley + Woolley, Tigg+Coll
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‘Designer light fittings, from the likes of Michael Anastassiades, were selected for the entrance space – supplied by Conran – which you would not usually expect to see in student accommodation. However, the clients felt this would add a sense of luxury to the scheme and set it apart from other student buildings.’ A simple mix of materials was used, tying the various spaces together with split-block colour applied to the walls that run through the building. Vertical strips of ribbed timber detailing frames the built-in booth seating and joinery, increasing the impact of the double-height space. Additional brass feature lighting was selected and contemporary FFE is specified throughout to bring a sense of luxury to the scheme, in keeping with the Chapter brand, whilst making the spaces feel comfortable and homely at the same time. While the designs were developed with the company brand in mind, the team also drew upon the local context of the building – a feature in keeping with the entire Chapter portfolio. This allows each of the Chapter residencies to have a unique look and feel, dominated by the architecture
of the individual building – stripped back spaces revealing original concrete and steel structures with a baseline of key aesthetic features that translate across the entire portfolio. For Spitalfields, the interiors scheme adds a rich colour scheme, taking cues from the surrounding area and its rich Victorian heritage – including the famous silk industry of nearby Fornier Street. ‘The block-colour palette was derived from the multi-coloured entrance doors and shutters, and the detailed entrance porticos inspired the ribbed wall panelling and joinery details,’ says Helen. These block colours are added throughout the common areas, layered with more intricate wall panelling detailing, which weaves the spaces together and ties the joinery and finishes together into a holistic design. Curved walls and joinery have been inserted into the existing spaces to create softer spaces for students to meet, study or relax. ‘The refurbishment was seen as a key move for Chapter, with Spitalfields seen as its flagship site,’ says Helen. ‘The main challenge with the project was how best to achieve the clients’ new operational
LIVING Chapter Living
strategy – which was to make the building feel open and accessible, whilst maintaining security for residents. We adjusted the flow through the spaces, allowing for access routes that can be open during the day, and closed off for one-way access at night.’ The newly reconfigured layout of the amenity space provides increased security for the residents, as well as delivering a range of social and study spaces that the residents enjoy spending time in. Unsightly speed gates were replaced with Crittal-style glazed doors to give increased permeability and connection between spaces. The bar forms a central feature element within the student amenity spaces, added into the centre of the space to connect the various facilities together and act as a focal point within the building. This can be used as a coffee bar during the day, functioning as a bar at night when events are held in the auditorium. The existing auditorium, with tiered seating, was underutilised in its previous configuration, and is now reworked into a space that students can use for study when events are not on.w
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LIVING Interview
Future-proofing BTR in the face of COVID-19 Changes to life due to the current pandemic could create a new boost for the BTR market, says Michael Howard, Founder of property specialists, urbanbubble.
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BTR developments are focusing on creating dedicated spaces for residents to work from home, with good WiFi and a safe, quality environment
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ccounting for a relatively small percentage of the private residential sector, Buildto-Rent has been consistently growing for the last five years thanks to substantial investment. Things were looking good at the start of 2020, but how has the current crisis impacted this developing market? urbanbubble is an award-winning residential property management agent based in Manchester, managing over 10,000 residential units across the country, working with developers and investors such as Legal & General, Property Alliance Group and Capital and Centric. Seeing an increase in virtual viewings at their properties across Manchester, the company are going from strength to strength despite the recent challenges caused by COVID-19. Not surprisingly, there are serious concerns for the short-term prospects for BTR, but Michael remains confident about the future of the sector. ‘For those people work and live within the same four rented walls, there is a possibility that changes are likely to come, not just in terms of where people want to live, but how – and what amenities they require.’ In the current landscape, renters are wanting a higher quality of apartment, with access to shared communal spaces – and that doesn’t just mean a swanky gym and reception area. The appeal of community facilities that BTR schemes offer, as well as the idea of having everything under one roof, are attractive prospects for those currently living in cramped and inadequate living environments. ‘There is now a focus on amenities to support working from home – this has been coming for a long time and has been boosted out of necessity thanks to the pandemic. ‘BTR developments are focusing on creating dedicated spaces for residents to work from home, with good WIFI and a safe, quality environment,’ says Michael.
The type of high-density residential accommodation associated with BTR has faced some criticism during the pandemic due to the lack of outdoor spaces. So, what’s the alternative? Spaces like those offered by urbanbubble have a focus on community spirit that will make up for lack of outdoor space. It’s difficult to create outdoor space for 400 people, and so balconies, roof gardens and well-designed community spaces will attract renters; places for people to socialise and bring community in. But what about the long term? How will the current pandemic affect the future of BTR, and what can we learn to create relevant and useful spaces going forward? Given social distancing measures still currently in place, BTR operators are thinking out of the box about how they can provide residents with the services they’re used to. In a post-lockdown world, there will be a move to become more digital from an operations view; from virtual concierges to location-based tools to assist with social distancing. urbanbubble are leading the way for residentfocused, adaptable BTR thanks to their digital approach. Digitalising community events, such as book clubs and pub quizzes, has replaced the real thing for the time being – urbanbubble has been working with app developer, Padoq, to create a property management app to create a virtual community, with events programme, to avoid the risk of residents feeling the effects of isolation. Although we won’t know the full story until the true impact of the pandemic unfolds, the BTR sector has shown resilience and overall investor appetite remains strong, with over £1.4bn worth of deals under offer at the end of Q2, according to CBRE. One thing is certain: BTR needs to adapt to changing customer demand – and urbanbubble are up for the challenge.w
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FOCUS Pearson Lloyd x Bene
PORTS illustrated When Bene launched PARCS, back in 2009, it’s not an exaggeration to say that the way we looked at the open plan office landscape started to change.
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he comprehensive, cohesive collection, designed by Pearson Lloyd, brought the ‘in’ into ‘informal’ – offering simple, effective breakout and meeting solutions, which not only broke up the formal, monotonous nature of floorplates, but also introduced a new ad hoc, collaborative and inclusive layer of working. The nature of those ‘in between’ spaces has morphed and shifted (into something more expansive and commonplace), but what about the rest of the workplace? Has that really moved on at the same pace over the past decade and a bit? Throughout that period, office layouts and workplace furniture have been designed to communicate status, with power dynamics and hierarchies embedded everywhere – think the corner office with its oversized desk, the formality of the boardroom, the visitor in their prodcut images Bene PORTS Collection. PHOTOS: WOLFGANG ZLODEJ
static chair vs the manager in their high-back swivel chair. These elements are so ubiquitous that we barely notice them – yet they often silence and exclude the voices that a business would benefit from hearing. Bene has (understandably) turned to the talents of Pearson Lloyd once again, with the recent launch of PORTS – a collection of executive furniture designed to empower new styles of leadership, redefining the office as an infinitely configurable place of openness, communication and collaboration, where everyone has a voice. The Austrian leader has now introduced three complementary product lines, which reflect the high standards and changing workstyles of modern leadership. Comprising adaptable seating, electronically adjustable
tables and a flexible storage and collaborative partitioning system, PORTS is a forwardthinking modular, flexible furniture system, which caters for all requirements. We visited the Pearson Lloyd studio in east London (which they will soon be leaving, we’re told, for an impressive brand new, purposedesigned space in nearby Yorkton Street) to discuss the PORTS project and collaborating with Bene once again. ‘We’ve done five or six projects with Bene over the years,’ Tom Lloyd tells us. ‘We first started talking about PORTS five years ago – about why management furniture has never received the level of thought that collaborative furniture has. We wondered what would happen if we applied some of the thinking that we had applied to PARCS into management furniture.’
‘We really unpicked it – first from a use perspective and then from a perspective of status, hierarchy and luxury,’ Luke Pearson explains. ‘The majority of that market is still, unfortunately, all about the aspiration of leather and chrome. ‘We wanted to present this in a different way. We saw this as a real opportunity. You still need high quality, beautiful stuff. Bene can get that quality – but it isn’t a lifestyle, luxury brand. There is a sense of innovation at Bene – and they have incredible hi-tech production levels. We ask about what PORTS provides for users. ‘We need to collaborate and we need spaces in which to meet,’ Luke tells us. ‘We also still need levels of privacy – and the idea of the locked boardroom seems a bit redundant nowadays. A lot of management furniture is still stuck in that traditional, status-driven style, with little thought about its users.’ ‘This hasn’t changed for decades,’ Tom takes over. ‘With PORTS, we wanted to redefine how the management space works. It has all the function – and is also a nice space to be in.’ Tom and Luke explain that PORTS consists of three elements – a flexible shelving system, a rise and fall table and a functional lounge furniture collection. ‘The three separate
elements are designed to work in harmony – to create informal, private and collaborative open workspaces,’ Tom explains. How do the duo feel the pandemic has affected the market. ‘I think half the drive for new product has been, traditionally, that we’ve had four global fairs each year to ‘worry’ about,’ Luke muses.
‘Those are, as much as anything, the biggest impetus to get a product out. The product cycles are so driven by these fairs – and without them, manufacturers will start to change their attitude to product development massively. ‘Companies will stop being interested in gap-filling – they will need to have a reason to introduce a new product. It has taken a long time for people to realise this – but I do think that is healthy for the market.’ Before taking our leave, we ask about the new studio. ‘The further east you are, the cooler you are,’ Luke laughs. ‘It’s very exciting – and will give us a whole host of facilities that we don’t have here. There’s going to be a real studio space – which will be a great improvement on what we have here – and then some really nice social, domestic spaces, which are all about meetings and collaboration as well.’ We always enjoy chatting with Tom and Luke, and PORTS is another impressive collection from the duo – but don’t just take our word for it! PORTS is already an award-winner collection, picking up the iF Gold Award 2020 and ‘Best of Best’ Red Dot Design Award.w
above Pearson Lloyd
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ARPER | Adell Designed by Lievore + Altherr Désile Park Released alongside the Aston Club chair from JeanMarie Massaud, Adell is Lievore + Altherr Désile Park’s latest collection with Arper. Made from 80% post-industrial recycled plastic, the collection was created with adaptability and sustainability in mind and is available in a beautiful colour palette. Arper will be unveiling the new collection at their showroom during London Design Festival.
Launchpad All dressed up and nowhere to go? COVID-19 has derailed all major launches, events, exhibitions and fairs (we know this better than most, of course). So, with the likes of Milan, NeoCon, Orgatec, CDW and Mix Design Collective all taken off the calendar for 2020, how and where do manufacturers show off those new products after so much time, effort and expertise have been invested? The answer is right here! Our product showcase brings together a selection of innovative new designs that have really caught our attention. PHOTO: SALVA LOPEZ
TAKT | Plint Designed by Cecilie Manz Danish furniture brand TAKT has collaborated with Cecilie Manz to release Plint, a wooden coffee table with leather hinges and a simple self-assembly mechanism. Crafted from two principal materials – wood and leather – the tabletop and the side pieces are cut from a single piece of hand-selected timber, interrupted only by the leather hinge – allowing it to fold flat as a continuous plank of wood. PHOTO: MIKKEL MORTENSEN
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LAUNCHPAD
CONNECTION | Rooms Rooms from Connection has evolved to meet the challenge of creating working spaces that are both visually and acoustically private, yet can be configured to remain open and ventilated, thanks to the recent additions of Woodland and Work Table walls. With a multitude of configurations, the design possibilities are endless!
NOWY STYL | eModel 2.0 Nowy Styl’s new eModel 2.0 desk with electric height adjustment allows users to perform everyday tasks in alternate sitting and standing positions, relieving the spine and neck muscles.
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LAUNCHPAD
LABOFA | Mallow Designed by Note Design Studio The Mallow lounge chair is the inaugural release from Note Editions, part of the Mallow family, designed in collaboration with Labofa. Plush and playful, the chair is formed from an arrangement of rounded forms that resemble a plush pile of marshmallows. The back and armrests have a satisfying ‘give’ to them as you sit, moulding to the contours of the body, and the base is engineered to swivel or spin as you desire.
SVENSSON | Debut Reminiscent of classic Scandinavian textiles from the 40s and 50s, Debut is manufactured from recycled ramie which is woven together with a wool mixture. Together, the materials create a dynamic structure, where ramie takes the spotlight alongside the slightly more low-key wool blend. On closer inspection, several colours appear – merging to create something different from a distance.
KARNDEAN | The Van Gogh Collection Karndean Designflooring has introduced its new look multi-format Van Gogh collection, with natural wood looks available in both rigid core and gluedown luxury vinyl formats, as well as its first herringbone designs in a rigid core specification.
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LAUNCHPAD
MILLIKEN | Edge Lit Edge Lit is a bold new carpet tile and plank collection from Milliken, offered in 12 colours, ranging from vivid brights to rich neutrals, and available in both a plank and tile format. The impulse behind the collection is to help create an invigorating workplace to enable the transition back to work, creating a mood of positivity, which promotes mental wellbeing.
BRUNNER | Team Screens Designed by Jehs + Laub Team Screens is a brand new range of acrylic screens designed by Jehs + Laub. This is not just an immediate response to current circumstances – it is also a ‘stick-around’ product. Simply put the base down, slot the screen in and separate spaces and places. The screens are elegant and colourful, and come in a range of clear, translucent and tinted acrylics. Mobile s creens on castors complement the range and bring added flexibility.
MARCA CORONA | Overclay A collection of porcelain stoneware floor and wall tiles, the inspiration for the Overclay collection comes from the earth and the architectural marvels of the past. Available at Casa Ceramica, Overclay comes in a range of seven shades, including favourites Terra and Cotto; bringing a warmth to indoor and outdoor commercial and residential settings.
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LAUNCHPAD
PEDRALI | Blume Designed by Sebastian Herkner Our friends at Pedrali have certainly been busy this year, with several launches including collaborations with Patrick Jouin and Robin Rizzini. A partnership with Sebastian Herkner, the Blume collection includes a chair, lounge armchair and set of coffee tables featuring a flower-shaped profile in extruded aluminium. The steel structural element is removable – meaning all the components can be disassembled and disposed of at the end of their life cycle.
GRANORTE | Groovy Groovy is the latest wall tile from cork innovator Granorte, bringing a sustainable and stylish edge to commercial spaces. Made entirely from 100% post-industrial recycled cork, the linear design of Groovy is CNC grooved and then dyed in one of seven colours.
YARWOOD | Vintage Faux Leather Yarwood have recently added two new faux leather ranges to their offering – both of which offer antimicrobial properties. Element brings a range of natural tones with a metallic finish to seating and vertical surfaces, whereas Vintage (pictured) brings a rustic leather look in both traditional and vibrant tones. Both ranges have inherent antibacterial and antifungal properties and, for added peace of mind, can be cleaned with bleach or alcohol-based solutions.
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MASSPRODUCTIONS | Icha Japanese and Scandinavian design meet in the Icha series – an elegant furniture family with a light yet sturdy construction. Originally launched all the way back in 2014, the Icha chair has been re-launched with a new reinforced construction and a Möbelfakta quality label. We’re told the biggest challenge was developing the steam-bent armrest – eventually taking the company to a small factory in northern Italy. We’re glad they made the trip.
MARK PRODUCTS | Type Focus The Type Focus table, designed by MARK cofounders, Anna Hart and John Miller, is designed to screen out distractions and provide an acoustic envelope. Type Focus has integrated lighting and power and, being part of the wider Type range, easily co-ordinates with Type tables, desks and benches.w
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Selections
Mutina brings new meaning to monochrome for Parkside A collaboration between Mutina and Laboratorio Avallone, Chymia is the latest porcelain tile collection available in full exclusively at Parkside. Inspired by graphic design, the expressive gesture of marking and the two extremes of black and white, each of the 22 designs in Chymia is obtained by combining the principle black and white structures. With 11 patterned textures, the tiles can be used randomly in monochrome compositions. www.parkside.co.uk
Antron publishes new report on sustainability INVISTA, makers of Antron nylon 6,6 commercial carpet fibre, has released its sustainability and wellbeing report, The Antron Brand on Sustainability. The report, available in digital and video format, reinforces the brand’s sustainability vision and includes testimonials from interior designers, flooring professionals and end users detailing their experience with the Antron brand and sustainability. To view a copy of the sustainability report, visit antron.eu www.antron.eu
Free biophilic toolkit You can now easily add plants, green/moss walls and other biophilic elements to your interior design schemes using Inleaf ’s free and newly launched Biophilic Design Toolkit. The resource includes accurate AutoCAD blocks, precedent images and product info sheets. Access is provided via a Google Drive, which includes future updates too. You can access the link at www. inleaf.co.uk/toolkit.
Impressive modular shelving system from KI KI’s 800 series modular shelving system creates agile and homely workplaces. The system is constructed from powder-coated steel, and can be produced in a range of colours, including at its joints. Freestanding or integrated with 800 Series cabinets, the system can also be enhanced with planter boxes, steel and wood inserts, and can be incorporated with work surfaces and soft seating.
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SELECTIONS
Flexible office space in a post-pandemic world The use of moveable wall systems will be an important part of newly adapted offices, delivering flexible space that can be quickly adapted to help ensure social distancing requirements are safely maintained. As the UK’s leading moveable wall specialist, Style Partitions is the sole distributor for Dorma Hüppe, Skyfold and SWG, and is able to offer a truly comprehensive range to meet all budgets and locations.
Rockfon does digital for DocuSign Dublin HQ Rockfon acoustic ceiling systems has been chosen throughout DocuSign’s new cutting edge EMEA HQ in Dublin, to help meet the client’s architectural ambitions and acoustic challenges posed by the mix of interior spaces. Rockfon Mono Acoustic was chosen, combining the elegance of a seamless ceiling with high performance characteristics, previously only possible with modular suspended ceilings.
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THE FINAL WORD
In (a meeting) space, no one can hear you scream As a workplace executive, I get a constant stream of marketing material about how to make my offices COVID-secure, Criteo’s Mike Walley understandably grumbles.
Mike Walley is Senior Director of Global Real Estate & Workplace Strategy at Criteo 98 | Mix 205 September 2020
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have been offered all manner of screens and sanitiser stations, more signage solutions than one man could ever need and various design services to help me work out the most secure one-way system imaginable. A recurring theme is ‘The Touchless Office’, but I think that is now outdated and we should be turning our attention to the air that we breathe. It is now universally accepted that the most prevalent vector in virus transmission is the airborne aerosol, and so we wear masks in shops and in schools and on buses. If you work in France, as of September 1st, you will have to wear a mask in all public places including the office. In my opinion, this is a right and proper response to the risk, so I don’t understand why we are not talking more about airflow in the office. Recent research shows that in confined spaces there can be ‘airborne transmission’ of the virus – with tiny virus particles lingering in the air and so it is vital to have a flow of clean air. I am particularly looking at meeting rooms and the risk they pose. I have rarely found a meeting room with adequate ventilation, a vital ingredient in lowering the viral load of a space, and so I think about how long I’d be happy to sit in a small enclosed space with other people, even if two metres apart and wearing a mask. I also consider how long I would wait before I go into a meeting room that had been occupied by only one person. As a real estate manager, I am looking at all the square footage we have invested
in the meeting rooms and realise we will just need to write it off for the duration of the pandemic. But what about afterwards? There is a lot of rethinking going on; about how we use space in the future, how much we need, and how often we go to the office to use it. I wonder if that will change the way we meet and so change the way we create space for those meetings. Can we see a day when confidential meetings are conducted over Zoom and, on the odd day we actually go into an office, do we just need comfortable space in which to gather and chat about stuff? How about we take the fronts off those meeting rooms that are against the perimeter and turn them into booths? Let’s demolish the centre space meeting rooms and build a café! Possibly a little drastic, but risk management collides with economics here. How much risk does a meeting room pose to business continuity? (Think about an entire team being infected at the same time.) How long can a company keep paying for significant levels of space that is not used? (What percentage of your space is meeting rooms?) Right now there are still more questions than answers in the world of workplace, but I believe it is vital that, in the middle of our thinking about sanitiser gel, masks and one way systems, we do not forget the changes being ushered in by COVID-19, and what that will mean for the way we think about offices.w
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